Erica Banks’s research interests focus broadly on the study of race and ethnicity, gender, feminist theory, inequality and poverty, crime and law, and qualitative methods. Banks currently teaches courses on mass incarceration. Although trained as a sociologist, Banks’s work spans multiple disciplines including criminology, Africana studies, women and gender studies, and legal studies.

Banks’s research examines women’s experiences within the criminal legal system and centers the experiences of Black women in particular. Through life history interviews, Banks examines how incarceration shapes Black women’s life outcomes in terms of economic stability and mobility, motherhood, and physical and mental health. Banks’s work has appeared in Feminist Criminology and RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of Social Sciences. 

Selected Articles

“Redefining Motherhood: How Formerly Incarcerated Black Women Frame Motherhood Choices.” Feminist Criminology. 0, no. 0 (2022):1-21.

“Monetary Sanctions and Housing Instability.” RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences. 8, no. 2 (2022):57-75 (with Mary Pattillo, Brian Sargent, and Daniel Boches).