His areas of research include prison reform, adolescent criminal behavior, informal economic practices, urban ethnography, alternative-to-incarceration programs, and the intersectionality of class and racial identity. He is the author of Overcoming the Magnetism of Street Life: Crime-Engaged Youth and the Programs That Transform Them (Lexington Books, 2011), “Class Status and the Construction of Black Masculinity” featured in Ethnicity and Race in a Changing World: A Review Journal (Spring 2012), and co-author of The Con Men: Hustling in New York City (Columbia University Press, 2015).