Her research agenda is focused on the process of creating and implementing criminal justice reforms, especially those centered on changes in policing, punishing, and incarcerating vulnerable groups or to how extreme punishments are used. Previous projects trace how the 8th Amendment's logic of categorically exempting certain groups from certain punishments has proliferated throughout the extreme punishment landscape and ask how these categories are given meaning by courts and correctional administrators. Her on-going research examines reforms that promise to better police and incarcerate the mentally ill in Los Angeles and how a small town in New England is working to divert the mentally ill from the criminal justice system to treatment in the community.