Victoria Piehowski is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology. Using qualitative methods, she studies change in the practices and policies of American punishment. Her scholarship asks three interrelated questions: How do penal actors craft and mobilize expertise—particularly over trauma and addiction— in the context of political conflict over law, crime, and victimization? How is the relationship between state and family negotiated in criminal justice venues? And finally, what are the implications of using notions of illness to reshape political and institutional relationships with criminal justice? Her research includes Veterans Treatment Courts, community supervision/probation, domestic violence protective orders, and bail.

• PhD, University of Minnesota, 2023 
• MA, University of Minnesota, 2019
• BA, College of St. Benedict, 2009

• SOC 317, Criminal Justice Systems
• SOC 373, Law & Society