Gabriela Gonzalez, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Ph.D., University of California, Irvine; Irvine, CA
Contact Information:
Email: gabriela.gonzalez03@sjsu.edu
Office: MH 525B
Spring 2025 Office Hours: TBA
About Dr. Gabriela Gonzalez:
Gabriela Gonzalez is an Assistant Professor of Justice Studies at San José State University. She received her PhD in Criminology, Law & Society from the University of California, Irvine. Dr. Gonzalez’s research broadly focuses on the nature and impact of punishment and inequality in the United States. She uses qualitative methodologies to analyze experiences of confinement, both physical forms (such as incarceration and immigration detention), and non-physical forms (including checkpoints and legal barriers), with a particular lens on the consequences for the family. Dr. Gonzalez’s current research examines the layered and varied ways by which immigration enforcement laws and practices influence the lived experiences of US-citizens in mixed-immigration-status families, specifically children with undocumented parents. Her ongoing collaborative projects examine parental immigration detention and the use and reliance on long-term solitary confinement.
Areas of Interest:
- Punishment
- Prisons
- Immigration enforcement
- Racial inequality
Recent Publications:
(forthcoming) Patler, C., Gonzalez, G., Guzman, M. and Paez, G. (2023). “If I talk about it, I start crying”: Children’s Responses to Parental Imprisonment in US Immigration Prisons. In M. Peterie (Ed.), Immigration Detention and Social Harm, Routledge
Gonzalez, G. (2023). Undocumented Consciousness: Citizenship and Illegality in the Lives of US Citizen Youth. Law & Policy. 1-21
Barragan M., Gonzalez, G., Strong, J., Augustine, D., Chesnut, K., Reiter, K., and Piffer, N. (2022). Triaged Out of Care: How Carceral Logics Complicate a ‘Course of Care’ in Solitary Confinement. Healthcare, 10(2), 28
Gonzalez, G. (2021) Who has the power? Manipulating and Reclaiming Social Support in Solitary Confinement. Punishment & Society, 24:1-19
Patler, C., & Gonzalez, G. (2021). Compounded Vulnerability: The Consequences of Immigration Detention for Institutional Attachment and System Avoidance in Mixed-Immigration-Status Families. Social Problems, 68(4), 1-17
