Almethia Franklin
Graduate
Criminology, Law, and Justice
Contact
Building & Room:
4030D BSB
Email:
About
Dr. Almethia Franklin is a sociologist and criminologist whose scholarship sits at the intersection of urban life, criminal legal policy, and structural inequality. Drawing on the traditions of Criminology, Law and Society, and Sociology, her work examines how systems, institutions, and spaces shape the everyday experiences of people in urban communities — particularly those most marginalized by policies and practices that claim to serve them.
Dr. Franklin's research spans a range of interconnected concerns: mass incarceration and reentry, community-based organizations and their role in bridging gaps left by the state, youth engagement and the social conditions that draw young people together in public space, and the housing instability that shapes life trajectories long before and long after contact with the criminal legal system. Across each of these areas, she is committed to centering the voices, knowledge, and lived expertise of those most directly impacted.
A recurring thread in her work is the question of how everyday practices, institutions, and places create — or foreclose — opportunity. She is particularly attentive to how identity is formed under conditions of structural inequality, and how social outcomes are shaped not only by individual decisions but by the environments and narratives that surround them.
Her public-facing and policy work includes serving as a lead author on Taking Account: A History of Racial Harm & Injustice Against Black Illinoisans (2025), a landmark report commissioned by the State of Illinois African Descent-Citizens Reparations Commission, as well as a featured op-ed in the Chicago Sun-Times on teen gatherings, racialized media framing, and what Chicago owes its young people.
Dr. Franklin brings this critical, justice-oriented lens to her research, teaching, and consulting. Whether in the classroom, the community, or the policy arena, her goal remains the same: to produce rigorous scholarship that is also accountable to the people and places it studies.
Education
PhD, Criminology, Law, and Justice, University of Illinois-Chicago, 2023
MA, Criminology, Law, and Justice, University of Illinois-Chicago, 2011
BA Criminology, Law, and Justice, University of Illinois at Chicago, 2009