Abigail Henson is an Associate Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Arizona State University. She earned her Ph.D. in Criminal Justice from Temple University in 2020. Her research examines transformative justice, program evaluation, and the ways the carceral state shapes identity, families, and communities. Grounded in strengths-based, human-centered frameworks, her work challenges dominant narratives about crime, punishment, and safety while critically examining systemic inequities within the criminal legal system.
Primarily a qualitative and ethnographic researcher, Dr. Henson centers lived experience to bring nuance and context to questions of justice and social change. Her scholarship has appeared in leading journals, including Criminology, Justice Quarterly, Crime & Delinquency, Punishment & Society, and the Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency.
Dr. Henson is also a dedicated teacher and mentor, having taught courses including Victims and the Criminal Legal System, Translational Criminology, Seminar on Carceral Systems, and Race and Justice. Committed to bridging research and practice, she has collaborated with organizations including the Correctional Association of New York, the Vera Institute of Justice, Arnold Ventures, and the Tucson Police Department, and has contributed to public conversations hosted by the National Academies of Sciences and Arnold Ventures.
Beyond academia, Dr. Henson is committed to making scholarship accessible and engaging. She hosts Critical Conversations, a podcast featuring scholars and experts exploring justice, inequality, and social change that has reached an international audience and generated more than 35,000 impressions. She also co-hosts the YouTube series Office Hours with Abbie and Juwan, which brings scholarly insight into candid conversations about justice and transformation, and creates broad-reaching, accessible content through her social media platform @whatsjust.
Across her research, teaching, and public scholarship, Dr. Henson works to challenge stigma, broaden conversations about justice, and advance more human-centered approaches to safety, accountability, and social change.