Rita is a cultural criminologist who combines textual analysis with qualitative and visual methods to understand the ways in which correctional systems are socially and legally constructed. Her work has been published in the British Journal of Criminology and Contemporary Justice Review and is supported by National Endowment for the Humanities and National Science Foundation grants. Her most recent book, The Meaning of Rehabilitation and its Impact on Parole: There and Back Again in California (2017), queries the concept of “rehabilitation” to determine how, on a legislative and policy level, the term is defined as a goal of correctional systems. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in communications, legal institutions, economics and government from American University and her Master of Arts degree in social ecology, and her PhD in criminology, law and society, from the University of California, Irvine.
Rita’s Fulbright research aims to understand whether the implementation of human rights principles within a prison can lead to change, or if the ideals legitimise existing practices.