John Halushka, Ph.D.
Associate Professor,
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
Fall 2025 Office Hours: TBD
About Dr. John Halushka:
John Halushka is Associate 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 patterns of poverty and racial inequality 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 people.
His book, Getting the Runaround: Formerly Incarcerated Men and the Bureaucratic Barriers to Reentry (University of California Press, 2023), examines how returning citizens navigate the "institutional circuit" of parole offices, public assistance programs, rehabilitation facilities, shelters, and family courts. He argues that the very institutions charged with facilitating the transition from incarceration to community life perversely undermine reintegration by imposing a litany of bureaucratic obstacles. This "runaround" is not merely a series of inconveniences but rather an extension of state punishment that exacerbates material poverty and diminishes citizenship rights.
His work has also appeared in Ethnography, Punishment and Society, and Social Problems.
Areas of Interest:
- Sociology of Punishment
- Prisoner Reentry
- Race, Class, and Gender Inequality
- Qualitative Research Methods
- Law and Society
Recent Publications:
Halushka, John M. 2023. Getting the Runaround: Formerly Incarcerated Men and the Bureaucratic Barriers to Reentry. Oakland: University of California Press.
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.
