In each issue Redbird Impact highlights an Illinois State faculty or staff member who exemplifies the University’s core value of civic engagement. The spring 2022 Campus Hero is Dr. Dawn Beichner, a professor in the Criminal Justice Sciences Department and Women’s, Gender, and Sexualities Studies program.
Beichner’s research interests include victimology, women offenders in the criminal justice system, prisoner reentry, and restorative justice. She is a member of the executive committee of the World Society of Victimology and serves as a liaison to the United Nations. Beichner also serves as vice chair of the Division of International Criminology for the American Society of Criminology.
She is also a research consultant for the YWCA Labyrinth Outreach Services to Women, which is a nonprofit organization that provides reintegration services to women returning home from prison and jail.
Beichner received an Impact Award at Illinois State University in 2017, and she was also the recipient of the College of Applied Science and Technology’s Outstanding Teaching Award in 2015.
The following Q&A with Beichner was conducted last August. The interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Could you explain your role as a research consultant for the YWCA Labyrinth Outreach Services to Women?
YWCA Labyrinth received a Second Chance Act grant at roughly $800,000 from the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), which aims to assist with reentry support for women returning home from prison and jail to McLean County and to reduce recidivism in our county. As a research consultant for YWCA Labyrinth, I oversee the evaluation of the grant, monitor the reentry program, track recidivism, and compile reports for the BJA. I am also part of a team of collaborators who developed the McLean County Reentry Council, an organization comprised of justice-involved individuals, criminal justice officials, health and human service providers who work to reduce recidivism in McLean County. We launched the council in the summer of 2021 and hold monthly meetings.
(The team consists of Toy Beasley of Treatment Alternatives for Safe Communities; Angi Chasensky of Recovery Oriented Systems of Care; and Kara Kirk and Vera Traver, both of YWCA Labyrinth.)
Your research interests include victimology, women offenders in the criminal justice system, prisoner reentry, and restorative justice. How do these areas all intertwine?
More than a decade ago, when I first embarked on studying justice-involved women, I was surprised by how many incarcerated women had histories of trauma and victimization. Many of the women, who were severely victimized by their intimate partners or fathers, see that their perpetrators either are not punished at all or are punished only minimally for their abusive acts. At the same time, when these women commit non-violent offenses, they are sentenced to time in jail and prison.
This is part of the problem of mass incarceration in the USA. Those of us who study justice systems know there is enormous harm that is produced by incarceration—both in terms of the individuals serving time in jails and prisons, as well as to the family members and loved ones who are left behind. We must work to limit mass incarceration—especially for non-violent offenders. I am an advocate for seeking alternatives to incarceration, including the use of restorative justice practices.
You serve as a liaison to the United Nations. How did that all come to be, and what do your duties entail with that position?
I am a member of the executive committee of the World Society of Victimology (WSV), an international nongovernmental organization that works to improve the plight of victims of crime and abuse of power. The WSV has special category consultative status with the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the United Nations and the Council of Europe. Through my role as liaison, I attend United Nations meetings as a representative of the WSV. In collaboration with my colleagues Dr. Rosemary Barberet (International Sociological Association and Criminologists Without Borders) and Dr. Sheetal Ranjan (American Society of Criminology–Division of International Criminology), I coordinated three parallel events for the 65th United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). We are currently working on a co-edited special issue of the international journal, Violence Against Women, that showcases the research presented at the 65th Session of the CSW.
What are some misconceptions of incarcerated people as they re-enter society and the workforce? What are some challenges that women especially face in this regard?
Although all people face obstacles on their return home from prison and jail, prisoner reentry is gendered. It is imperative that we recognize the connections between unresolved trauma and victimization and women’s pathways into jail and prison. If we hope to support women in the critical transition home from jail and prison, we have to make sure that they have access to counseling, substance counseling, and other health and human services. We also have to recognize that because women are often the primary care providers for their children before and after incarceration, their incarceration poses an enormous disruption to their children. We should not incarcerate women—or anyone else—for nonviolent offenses. Instead, we should work to provide treatment for unresolved trauma and substance use issues in the community.
You recently released a book you co-authored called Distraction: Girls, School, and Sexuality. What is the premise of the book, and what do you hope people take away from it?
Distraction is a volume of essays that I co-edited with my friend and colleague—Dr. Erin Mikulec of ISU’s College of Education. It examines women’s and girls’ experiences in education from pre-school through university. The book, which takes an intersectional approach, examines how schools serve as gendered spaces and genderizing spaces that reinforce societal norms and expectations for girls and young women. Although much of the book is written from the perspective of the U.S. school system, there are chapters by authors in Singapore and Turkey. The last chapter in the edited volume is a chapter that I wrote examining campus sexual assault in the U.S. Among the topics addressed in the chapter, I give special consideration to the ways in which college campuses foster rape culture and victim blaming, as well as the way that power and privilege contribute to campus sexual assault. The chapter concludes with a call for an approach to campus sexual assault that is restorative, centered on the survivor-victims, and intersectional.
Is there anything else you’d like to add?
For more than a decade, I have been working internationally. Some of my most recent scholarship has been published in Germany, Spain, and the U.S. In addition to the endeavors with the World Society of Victimology and the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, I teach a gender and offending course each semester at Fachhochschule Kiel in Kiel, Germany. I am also one of the course directors for a post-graduate course in victimology, victim assistance, and criminal justice that is held at the Inter University Centre (IUC) of Dubrovnik, Croatia, each summer. Although the course is taught in English, it includes faculty and students from around the world. For the past 10 years, I have been hosting ISU students on a study abroad that coincides with the IUC course: CJS 306 International Experiences in Justice–Croatia, Bosnia, and Montenegro. If anyone is interested in studying with me, please email me at dmbeich@IllinoisState.edu.
