Biography

Ashley Muchow is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Criminology, Law, and Justice at the University of Illinois 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 immigration enforcement on crime reporting and the potential for community policing to offset these spillover effects, to work examining whether media coverage influences 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 research on the impact of local immigrant detention on Hispanic arrest rates, the effect of high-profile police violence on policing patterns, and the consequences of mental health clinic closures on community-police interactions. She is presently conducting research on the impact of negative immigration news coverage on trends in Hispanic arrest rates.

• Her third research focus considers the impacts of public policy interventions. Her work in this area has highlighted the life-saving benefits of early social distancing policies during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as 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 interdisciplinary work has been published in leading journals, including Criminology, Justice Quarterly, Criminology & Public Policy, Crime & Delinquency, the Journal of Urban Economics, and the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.