Dr. Beth Ritchie

Dr. Beth Ritchie is the author of numerous articles concerning Black feminism and gender violence, race and criminal justice policy, and the social dynamics around issues of sexuality, families, and grassroots organizations in African-American communities. Her book Compelled to Crime: the Gender Entrapment of Black Battered Women, which is taught in many college courses and is cited in the popular press for its original arguments concerning race, gender, and crime. Her most recent book, Black Women, Male Violence, and the Build-up of a Prison Nation, chronicles the evolution of the contemporary anti-violence movement during the time of mass incarceration in the United States. Dr. Richie is qualitative researcher who is also working on an ethnographic project documenting the conditions of confinement in women’s prisons. Her work has been supported by grants from The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, The Ford Foundation, and The National Institute for Justice and The National Institute of Corrections. Among others, she has been awarded the Audre Lorde Legacy Award from the Union Institute, The Advocacy Award from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and The Visionary Award from the Violence Intervention Project. Dr. Richie is a board member of The Chicago Foundation for Women, The Institute on Domestic Violence in the African Community, The Center for Fathers’ Families and Public Policy and a founding member of INCITE!: Women of Color Against Violence. Dr. Richie is engaged in several research projects designed to explore the relationship between violence against women in low-income African-American communities and violence. The specific focus of one study is girls who are both violent and perpetrators of violence. Another project is looking at the factors that influence recidivism and re-arrest rates for women and young people being released from a large urban jail. A third project is concerned with the public policy and social factors that lead to the rise in incarceration rates of women and conditions of confinement once they are sentenced.