Meda Chesney-Lind

 

Biographical Statement

 

 

Meda Chesney-Lind, Ph.D. is Professor of Women’s Studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. She has served as Vice President of the American Society of Criminology and president of the Western Society of Criminology. Nationally recognized for her work on women and crime, her books include Girls, Delinquency and Juvenile Justice which was awarded the American Society of Criminology's Michael J. Hindelang Award for the "outstanding contribution to criminology, 1992" and The Female Offender: Girls, Women and Crime published in 1997 by Sage. Her most recent book, is an edited collection entitled Female Gangs in America has just been published by Lakeview press. In 2001, she received the Bruce Smith, Sr. Award “for outstanding contributions to Criminal Justice” by the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, and she was named a fellow of the American Society of Criminology in 1996. She has also received the Distinguished Scholar Award from the Women and Crime Division of the American Society of Criminology, the Major Achievement Award from the Division of Critical Criminology, and the Herbert Block Award for service to the society and the profession from the American Society of Criminology. Finally, she has received the Donald Cressey Award from the National Council on Crime and Delinquency in 1997 for “her outstanding academic contribution to the field of criminology.” Locally, she has been awarded the University of Hawaii Board of Regent's Medal for "Excellence in Research."

 

Chesney-Lind is an outspoken advocate for girls and women, particularly those who find their way into the criminal justice system. Her work on the problem of sexism in the treatment of girls in the juvenile justice system was partially responsible for the recent national attention devoted to services to girls in that system. More recently, she has worked hard to call attention to the soaring rate of women's imprisonment and the need to vigorously seek alternatives to women's incarceration.