One trajectory of her research explores the character, causes, and consequences of prisoners' secondary adjustments to prison and their relationship to political resistance. Another trajectory examines prisons as organizations, which requires taking seriously the managerial influences on prisons as distinct from prisons' penal components. Much of her recent work mobilizes neo-institutional theory to understand the dynamics of widespread penal change and to better understand the significance of penal innovations. Some of her recent publications include, "A Neo-Institutional Account of Prison Diffusion" (Law and Society Review, 2015), winner of the Law and Society Article Prize (2016), and "Resistance or Friction: Understanding the Significance of Prisoners' Secondary Adjustments" (Theoretical Criminology, 2015).