Profile

Robert Johnson

Professor
Department of Justice, Law and Society

  • Professor Johnson's areas of expertise include the prison and other institutions of punishment and confinement, the death penalty, institutional violence, and race and justice in America. He has published extensively in these areas. He has testified or provided expert affidavits before state and federal courts, the U.S. Congress, and the European Commission of Human Rights. Courses Professor Johnson teaches include Violence in Institutions, Violence in America, The Prison Community, Advanced Seminar in Corrections, and Corrections in America.

  • Degrees

    PhD State University of New York, Albany
    MA State University of New York, Albany
    BA Fairfield University
  • DOWNLOAD CV (PDF)

  • OFFICE

  • SPA - Justice, Law and Society
  • Ward - 254

  • CONTACT INFO

  • (202) 885-2951
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  • FOR THE MEDIA

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    at 202-885-5950 or submit a request.

Teaching

AU Expert

Area of Expertise: Death penalty, prisons, creative writing on crime and punishment

Additional Information: Robert Johnson's social science books include Culture and Crisis in Confinement; Condemned to Die: Life Under Sentence of Death; Hard Time: Understanding and Reforming the Prison; and Death Work: A Study of the Modern Execution Process, which received the Outstanding Book Award of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences. Johnson has edited five social science books: The Pains of Imprisonment (with Hans Toch); Crime and Punishment: Inside Views (with Hans Toch); Life without Parole: Living and Dying in Prison Today (with Sonia Tabriz, an AU honors alum); A Life for a Life: America’s Other Death Penalty (with Thomas Bernard), and most recently, A Woman Doing Life: Notes from a Prison for Women. Johnson has published widely in academic journals, including law review articles. Johnson's creative writing includes four collections of original poems: Poetic Justice: Reflections on the Big House, the Death House, and the American Way of Justice, winner of the L.I.F.E. award from WilloTrees Press; Burnt Offerings: Poems on Crime and Punishment; Sunset Sonata: Stories and Poems from the River’s Edge, and most recently, A Zoo Near You (which includes contributions by current and former AU students). His book, Lethal Rejection: Stories on Crime and Punishment (coedited with Sonia Tabriz, an AU honors alum), features many of his short stories and plays. Johnson’s creative writing has appeared in Admit2, The American Review, Black Bear Review, The National Catholic Reporter, Carnelian, CMC (Crime Media Culture), Dan River Anthology, JMWW, Lifelines, Mannequin Envy, Pleasant Living Magazine, Tacenda Literary Magazine, and Wild Violet. His short story “The Practice of Killing” won a national fiction contest sponsored by Wild Violet magazine. His first novel, Miller’s Revenge, was published by Brown Paper Publishing in 2010. His work, Cell Buddy, has been read at the Kennedy Center. Johnson’s best known work of social science—Death Work: A Study of the Modern Execution Process—won the Outstanding Book Award of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences.

Media Relations
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