Ben FisherAssociate Professor of Civil Society & Community Studies

My work focuses on school criminalization, which refers to the ways that the strategies, technologies, and logics of the criminal legal system appear in schools. I focus on issues including police in schools, school discipline, and schools’ use of a variety of security measures. Much of my research in these areas addresses issues of racial equity with an eye toward making schools more just and equitable places for students. I use a variety of research methods to study school criminalization, including quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods.

Read my research profile

Selected Publications

Fisher, B. W., & Widdowson, A. O. (2023). Racial and ethnic differences in the consequences of school suspension for arrest. Criminology, 61(3), 622-653. https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9125.12344

Fisher, B. W., Higgins, E. M., Kupchik, A., Viano, S., Curran, F. C., Overstreet, S., Plumlee, B., & Coffey, B. (2022). Protecting the flock or policing the sheep? Differences in school resource officers’ perceptions of threats by school racial composition. Social Problems, 69(2), 316-334. https://doi.org/10.1093/socpro/spaa062

Fisher, B. W., Wiley, S. A., & McGlynn-Wright, A. (2022). Suspended again: The racialized consequences of a 9th grade suspension on future suspension patterns. Race and Social Problems, 14(3), 254-267. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12552-021-09332-5

Gerlinger, J., Viano, S., Gardella, J. H., Fisher, B. W., Curran, F. C., & Higgins, E. M. (2021). Exclusionary school discipline and delinquent outcomes: A meta-analysis. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 50(8), 1493-1509. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-021-01459-3

For a full list of publications, see Fisher’s CV.

Featured Media

• The New York Times, Schools Bring Police Back to Campuses, Reversing Racial Justice Decisions
• CBS News Boston, Question Everything: Do metal detectors at schools really work?
• Teen Vogue, Some Districts That Removed Police From Schools Brought Them Back
• The Badger Herald, UW, UWPD consider mandatory active shooter training