Across U.S. history, sexual regulation has operated as a powerful tool for producing racial hierarchy, defining moral boundaries, and legitimating punishment. From the colonial construction of Indigenous “savagery” to the hypersexualization of Black Americans under slavery and Jim Crow, sexual deviance has repeatedly been mobilized to justify surveillance, punishment, and racial terror. This project argues that the contemporary sex offender registry, widely understood as a neutral mechanism of public safety, is best understood as a modern extension of long-standing racialized narratives that link sexuality, danger, and exclusion.

The purpose of this study is to examine how offender race and age, alongside offense severity, relationship to the victim, and victim age, shape public perceptions of punishment, rehabilitation, and social exclusion. Drawing on theories of group position, racial threat, and retributive impulses, the project investigates how moral emotions such as fear, disgust, and the desire for symbolic purification continue to structure punitive judgment today. This study employs a nationally representative survey experiment conducted through YouGov where respondents evaluate paired hypothetical male sex offenders who vary across experimentally manipulated characteristics. Participants allocate prison sentences, assess rehabilitative potential, and indicate comfort with social proximity, allowing for causal identification of how racialized and contextual cues shape punitive decision-making.

This project is original in its integration of historical analysis of racialized sexual mythmaking with experimental methods typically divorced from sociohistorical inquiry. By operationalizing centuries-old racial-sexual narratives within a contemporary survey experiment, the study bridges a critical gap between theory and empirical research. The project challenges the assumption that punishment is a rational response to risk, revealing how the American state continues to define safety, citizenship, and belonging through the regulation of racialized sexuality.

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are significant negative exposures that strongly influence adult behavioral, physical, and mental health. ACEs disrupt emotional, cognitive, social, and physiological functioning, shaping developmental trajectories across the lifespan.

This study’s purpose is to examine how ACEs drive progressive, intergenerational patterns of harm that can lead to substance misuse, mental health challenges, and eventual involvement with the criminal legal system, including adult incarceration. The US prevalence of ACEs and the social and economic costs associated with their long-term impacts are explored. The analysis identifies pathways linking specific ACEs to distinct criminalized behaviors, highlighting how early adversity increases the likelihood of justice-system involvement. An overview of state-level ACEs legislative efforts and policies to strengthen advocacy is provided. Successful interventions mitigating long-term effects of ACEs on incarceration are identified. The study concludes by outlining evidence-based avenues for future research. This research design is a literature review of available information from 1990 to 2025.

This project carries significant broad impacts for students, the university, and society. By advancing a deeper understanding of ACEs as a preventable public health and social systems issue, it supports efforts to design more equitable, trauma-informed environments. The findings could inform state policy, strengthen community-based prevention initiatives, and drive future research. This could contribute to long-term reductions in violence, incarceration, health disparities, and intergenerational adversity.

The project builds upon the university’s role as a leader in research that can be applied to real world situations, creating evidence-based systems change. The research is broadly applicable to numerous disciplines, including public health, social work, psychology, administration, education, and law. It provides knowledge for designing interventions at individual, relational, organizational, and structural levels. This project enhanced my professional development by deepening my expertise of ACEs and systems-level analysis. It strengthened skills in conceptual synthesis, policy translation, and community-engaged scholarship.