COVID Impacts on Migrant Detention and Deportation in New Jersey

Kenneth Sebastian León is an Assistant Professor of Latino and Caribbean Studies and Criminal Justice at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. He specializes in corruption and state-corporate crime, and racialized social control, and is author of Corrupt Capital – Alcohol, Nightlife, and Crimes of the Powerful (Routledge).

He is a former research contractor at U.S. Department of Justice – National Institute of Justice, and has extensive experience studying localized public safety challenges. Immersive projects in this area include studies of the Colombian National Police, the Honduran National Police, and the transnational capacity of MS-13 in the United States and El Salvador. Current research collaborations include “COVID-19 and (Im)Mobility in the Americas“, a project which examines the transnational impacts of COVID-19 on measures and processes of racialized social control, migration, public safety, and human rights. More information about the project can be found at inmovilidadamericas.org.

León is a co-PI on a project funded by the Rutgers Center for COVID-19 Response and Pandemic Preparedness, where he and two RU colleagues are empirically documenting the relationship between COVID-19 and migrant detention and deportation within the state of New Jersey.

His work appears in Criminology & Public Policy; Critical Criminology; Crime, Law and Social Change; Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology; International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy; Journal of Psychoactive Drugs; the Journal of Qualitative Criminal Justice and Criminology; Race and Justice; among other refereed and public outlets.