John Halushka, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor,
Internship Coordinator,

Ph.D., New York University; New York, NY

Curriculum Vitae (CV) [pdf]; Personal Website

Contact Information:

Email: john.halushka@sjsu.edu
Phone: 408-924-1311
Office: MH 511

Office Hours: Fall TBA

About Dr. John Halushka:

John Halushka is an Assistant Professor of Justice Studies at San Jose State University. He received his Ph.D. in Sociology from New York University in 2017. His research broadly examines how mass incarceration shapes poverty and racial inequality patterns in the United States. As an ethnographer, he utilizes the tools of participant observation and in-depth interviewing to understand the lived experiences of formerly incarcerated men, particularly their experiences navigating criminal legal and social welfare bureaucracies. His work has appeared in peer-reviewed journals, including Ethnography, Punishment and Society, and Social Problems. He is currently working on a book-length manuscript, Getting the Runaround: Formerly Incarcerated Men and the Bureaucratic Barriers to Reentry, which is under contract with the University of California Press.

Areas of Interest:

• Sociology of Punishment
• Prisoner Reentry
• Race, Class, and Gender Inequality
• Qualitative Research Methods
• Law and Society

Recent Publications:

Halushka, John M. 2020. "The Runaround: Punishment, Welfare, and Poverty Survival After Prison. " Social Problems, 67(2): 233–250.

Halushka, John. 2019. “Prisoner Reentry in the United States.” Chapter 43 in The Routledge Companion to Rehabilitative Work in Criminal Justice. Pamela Ugwudike, Hannah Graham, Fergus McNeill, Peter Raynor, Faye Taxman, and Chris Trotter (Eds). London: Routledge.

Halushka, John. 2019. Review of Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America by James Forman, Jr. Punishment and Society, 21(3): 375-379.

Halushka, John. 2017. “Managing Rehabilitation: Negotiating Performance Accountability at the Frontlines of Reentry Service Provision.” Punishment and Society, 19(4): 482-502

Halushka. John. 2016. “Work Wisdom: Teaching Former Prisoners How to Negoctiate Workplace Interactions and Perform a Rehabilitated Self.” Ethnography, 17(1):72-91

Morning, Ann, Nandi Dill, Rachel Garver, and John Halushka. 2013. "Race and Ethnicity." Pp. 260-291 in The Sociology Project: Introducing the Sociological  Imagination, First Edition. Richard Arum, Lynne Haney and Jeff Manza (Eds). New York: Pearson.