Biography

Ashley Muchow is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Criminology, Law, and Justice at the University of Illinois at Chicago and Co-Director of the Applied Policy Research Lab at UIC’s College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs.

Using predominately quasi-experimental methods, her research examines the causes and consequences of social inequality and the role of policy in alleviating or aggravating these disparities. Her research follows three interrelated lines of inquiry.

• The first concerns immigrant integration and its relationship with local contexts of immigrant reception. This has ranged from projects examining the role of legal status on the economic integration of immigrants, studies documenting the “chilling effect” of intensified immigration enforcement on immigrant contact with police and the potential for community policing to offset these spillover effects, to ongoing work examining how local television news coverage of immigration and crime influence local cooperation in immigration enforcement.

• The second centers around policing—specifically, factors that reduce or worsen racial and ethnic disparities in criminal justice contact. This includes ongoing work examining whether local cooperation in immigrant detention increases rates of Hispanic arrest, the impact of local television news coverage on Hispanic-White arrest disparities, the effect of high-profile police violence on patterns of policing, and whether the 2012 closure of half of Chicago’s public mental health clinics increased criminal justice contact.

• Her third research focus considers the impacts of social policy interventions. Her work in this area has demonstrated the life-saving benefits of early social distancing policies during the COVID-19 pandemic and the positive educational, health, and economic impacts of early childhood interventions. In ongoing work, she is exploring the potential for free community college programs to reduce racial and ethnic gaps in educational attainment.

Her work has been published in economics (e.g., Journal of Urban Economics), demography (e.g., Demographic Research), and criminology journals (e.g., Justice Quarterly, Crime & Delinquency, Police Quarterly).