Keramet Reiter

Keramet Reiter is an Assistant Professor at the University of California, Irvine, affiliated with both the School of Law and the Department of Criminology, Law and Society. She serves as Director of LIFTED, offering BA degrees to incarcerated students, and as Editor-in-Chief of Punishment & Society. Her scholarly leadership includes co-founding the PrisonPandemic digital archive.

• Ph.D., Jurisprudence & Social Policy, UC Berkeley
• J.D., UC Berkeley
• M.A., John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY)

Reiter's research focuses on prisons, prisoners' rights, and the impact of punishment policies on legal systems and communities. She employs interviewing, archival analysis, quantitative data, and legal scholarship to examine issues such as solitary confinement, medical experimentation, civil rights, and gun control laws. Her work spans comparative analyses between the U.S. and Denmark, highlighting prison reform and penal system normalization.

Key trends in her 15 most recent publications (2025–2020) emphasize long-term solitary confinement, prison healthcare, and human rights violations. Collaborative studies with the PrisonPandemic Team document the social costs of incarceration during public health crises. Her work also addresses racial disparities, gang labeling, and policy responses to systemic issues in correctional facilities.

She has received the

• ACLS Fellowship
• Cavan Young Scholar Award

for her contributions. Reiter co-edited Extreme Punishment and authored 23/7: Pelican Bay Prison and the Rise of Long-Term Solitary Confinement and Mass Incarceration. Beyond academia, she founded a prison education program on Rikers Island and testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary.