Department of Sociology

Research interests: Ronald Kramer received his Ph.D. in 2009. His dissertation, “A Social History of Graffiti Writing in New York City, 1990 – 2005,” focused on (a) how graffiti writers reinvented their practice throughout the 1990s and (b) how the criminalization of graffiti and other forms of petty offending is driven by the social inequalities spawned by neoliberal economic policy. He has since worked on an evaluation research project that explored the impact of a rehabilitation program within the main youth detention center on Rikers Island. His current research, continuing on this trajectory, considers how neoliberalism is shaping contemporary practices within criminal justice systems. Various scholars have shown that changes initiated in the US economy during the 1960s and 1970s correspond to new structural features of criminal justice. Less attention, however, has been given to the organizations, social groups, and individuals upon which the operation of criminal justice is dependent. It is in this theoretical context that Kramer's current project seeks to understand how neoliberal ideas become translated into practice and generate concrete social outcomes.

He has taught in the areas of crime and deviance, art and popular culture, urban sociology, social theory, inequality, research methods, and political economy.