About

Steve Herbert is the Mark Torrance Professor of Law, Societies, and Justice at the University of Washington. He is trained as a geographer with a PhD from UCLA obtained in 1995. His research primarily explores the relationship between the exercise of power and the control of space, with a particular focus on urban police departments. Herbert has conducted extensive ethnographic fieldwork with the Los Angeles and Seattle Police Departments, which has resulted in three books: 'Policing Space: Territoriality and the Los Angeles Police Department,' 'Citizens, Cops, and Power: Recognizing the Limits to Community,' and 'Banished: The New Social Control in Urban America,' co-authored with Katherine Beckett. His scholarly work has been published in leading journals across disciplines such as Geography, Socio-Legal Studies, and Criminology. More recently, his research has centered on the realities of life-sentenced prisoners, culminating in his book 'Too Easy to Keep: Life-Sentenced Prisoners and the Future of Mass Incarceration,' inspired by his prison-based educational efforts, including courses and book clubs in various prisons. Herbert also created the 2021 podcast series 'Making Amends,' which tells the stories of incarcerated men seeking to atone for their past mistakes. He teaches courses including 'Introduction to Law, Societies, and Justice,' 'Punishment: Theory and Practice,' and 'Juvenile Parole Project,' and was honored with the UW Distinguished Teaching Award in 2009.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Political Science
• Law
• Social Science
• Biology
• Geography
• Psychology
• Criminology
• Engineering

Selected publications

• Degradation or Redemption? A Parole Board Polices a Moral Boundary

  Law & Social Inquiry · 2022 · 16 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Sociology
  • Political Science

  Parole boards possess the notable power to grant release from prison, oftentimes well short of an incarcerated person’s legally allowable length of sentence. Although the exercise of that power is, at least in part, governed by law, extralegal considerations likely play an influential part in decisions to grant release. Indeed, the analysis offered here of parole board hearings in Washington State reveals, in particular, the work that board members perform to reinforce the moral significance of past criminality. In parole hearings, board members find ample opportunities to morally condemn the index offenses that petitioners have perpetrated and to express skepticism about narratives of petitioner change. Instead of helping petitioners ease the burden of being profaned for their past acts, board members often act to reinforce the mark of a criminal record. These realities underscore the significant work necessary to shift attitudes toward those convicted of crimes, and expose the cultural challenges that attempts to reduce incarceration more generally are likely to face, especially in the United States.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• 7 The Punitive City Revisited: Th e Transformation of Urban Social Control

  New York University Press eBooks · 2022 · 2 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Sociology
  • Political Science
  • Sociology
  PublisherDOI

• Chapter Four. Let’s All Be Easy

  2019-05-07

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• ONE. Accountability: Ethnographic Engagement and the Ethics of the Police (United States)

  2019-12-31

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Chapter Two. Being Easy Isn’t Easy

  2019-05-07

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Too Easy to Keep

  2019-01-08 · 30 citations

  book1st authorCorresponding

  “Some guys don’t break any rules. They do their jobs, they go to school, they don’t commit any infractions, they keep their cells clean and tidy, and they follow the rules. And usually those are our LWOPs [life without parole]. They’re usually our easiest keepers.” Too Easy to Keep directs much-needed attention toward a neglected group of American prisoners—the large and growing population of inmates serving life sentences. Drawing on extensive interviews with lifers and with prison staff, Too Easy to Keep charts the challenges that a life sentence poses—both to the prisoners and to the staffers charged with caring for them. Surprisingly, many lifers show remarkable resilience and craft lives of notable purpose. Yet their eventual decline will pose challenges to the institutions that house them. Rich in data, Too Easy to Keep illustrates the harsh consequences of excessive sentences and demonstrates a keen need to reconsider punishment policy.

  PublisherDOI

• Policing Los Angeles: Race, Resistance, and the Rise of the Lapd

  Journal of American History · 2019-12-19 · 41 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Chapter Three. When Easy Becomes Hard

  2019-05-07

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Becoming Easy

  2018-12-18

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  An “easy keeper” is a life-sentenced prisoner who develops steady routines and works to improve the communities of which they are part, largely through providing mentoring to younger inmates. This chapter reviews the processes through which lifers mature into their role as an easy keeper. These prisoners undergo a steady maturation. They come to terms with their crime, and thereby feel compelled to pursue projects of redemption and atonement. These efforts at redemption deserve greater consideration in discussions of punishment policy.

  PublisherDOI

• Being Easy Isn’t Easy

  2018-12-18

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Easy keepers arrive at that status through a maturation process that leads them to foster constructive relations with others. They do so despite a prison environment that poses considerable challenges for efforts at personal growth. This chapter reviews some of those challenges. More specifically, it emphasizes: the often fraught relations that lifers possess with prison staff, with members of their family, and with each other; the dearth of opportunities for work and education; and the difficulty they face in atoning directly for their crimes. These impediments to individual betterment make all the more remarkable the ability of lifers to become such stable and productive community members.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Katherine Beckett

  University of Washington

  17 shared

• Anita M. Waters

  Denison University

  9 shared

• Chris Giacomantonio

  Dalhousie University

  9 shared

• Peter O. Müller

  Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg

  3 shared

• Antonius C. G. M. Robben

  Utrecht University

  3 shared

• Linda McDowell

  2 shared

• Dydia DeLyser

  California State University, Fullerton

  2 shared

• John Carr

  UNSW Sydney

  2 shared

Labs

• Law, Societies & JusticePI

Education

• Ph.D., Geography

  University of California, Los Angeles

  1995

Awards & honors

• UW Distinguished Teaching Award (2009)