Amy Farrell

Position: Assistant Professor, Associate Director, Institute on Race and Justice Degree(s): B.A., Beloit College, 1995, Government and Sociology M.S., University of Delaware, 1997, Sociology Ph.D., Northeastern University, 2001, Law, Policy,& Society Areas of Research/Interest: Law and Society, Race, Class and Gender, Discretion and the Criminal Justice System, Police Practices, Courts Background: Dr. Farrell is an Assistant Professor in the College of Criminal Justice and the Associate Director of the Institute on Race and Justice at Northeastern University. Her research focuses on disparity in the criminal justice system. Primary interests include racial and gender differences the administration of justice, discretionary decision making, and prosecution and sentencing practices. She has recently conducted research on local law enforcement responses to human trafficking and is currently leading the development of a national human trafficking data collection program for the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Dr. Farrell is a co-recipient of the National Institute of Justice’s W.E.B. DuBois Fellowship on crime justice and culture.

Phone: 617.373.7439 Office: 400D Churchill Email: am.farrell@neu.edu CV: Download as PDF

• Farrell, Amy, McDevitt, Jack and Fahy, Stephanie. (2008). Understanding law enforcement responses to human trafficking. Law Enforcement Executive Forum, 8(1): 1-18. (Link)
• Booth, Jeb, Farrell, Amy and Varano, Sean. (2008). Social control, serious delinquency and risky behavior: A gendered analysis. Crime and Delinquency, 54: 423-456. (Link)
• Givelber, Daniel and Farrell, Amy. (2008). Judges and juries: The defense case and differences in acquittal rates. Law and Social Inquiry, 33(1): 31-52. (Link)
• Cronin, Shea, McDevitt, Jack, Farrell, Amy and Nolan, James. (2007) Bias crime reporting: Organizational responses to ambiguity, uncertainty and infrequency in eight police departments. American Behavioral Scientist, 51(2): 213-231. (Link)
• Farrell, Amy. (2004). Measuring judicial and prosecutorial discretion: Sex and race disparities in departures from the federal sentencing guidelines. Justice Research and Policy, 6(2): 45-78. (Link)

• Farrell, Amy and Jack McDevitt, “Enhancing the Collection and Standardization of Human Trafficking Data: Examples from Data Collection Efforts in the United States” UN-Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking, Cairo, Egypt, January 2008. (Link)
• Farrell, Amy, “Local Law Enforcement Responses to Human Trafficking: Evidence from the National Survey” American Society of Criminology Annual Meeting, November, 2007, Atlanta, Georgia. (Link)
• Ward, Geoff and Amy Farrell, “The Significance of Federal Court Workgroup Racial Diversity to Disparity on Sentence Outcomes” Racial Democracy, Crime and Justice and Justice Network Workshop, Ohio State University, July 2007. (Link)
• Farrell, Amy, “Understanding and Improving Law Enforcement Responses to Human Trafficking: Findings from the National Study” National Institute of Justice Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., July 2007. (Link)
• McDevitt, Jack and Amy Farrell, “Collecting Data on Law Enforcement Responses to Human Trafficking” Technical Consultation on Forced Labor Indicators, Data Collection and National Estimates, International Labor Organization, Geneva, Switzerland, 2007. (Link)
• Farrell, Amy, “State Human Trafficking Legislation” Marshalling Every Resource, Woodrow Wilson School of Public Affairs, Princeton University, December 1, 2006. (Link)
• Farrell, Amy, “Measuring and Improving Law Enforcement Responses to Human Trafficking” American Society of Criminology Annual Meeting, November 2006, Los Angeles, California. (Link)
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• Farrell, Amy, Sean Varano and Jeb Booth, “Social Control and Violence: Testing the Relationship Between Perceptions and School Related Violence” American Society of Criminology Annual Meeting, November 2005, Toronto, Canada. (Link)
• Farrell, Amy, and Carsten Andrsen, “Variations in Traffic Enforcement: An Analysis of Citation and Warning Patters” American Society of Criminology Annual Meeting, November 2005, Toronto. (Link)
• Farrell, Amy and Jack McDevitt, "Racial Profiling and Motor Vehicle Stops" Flaschner Judicial Institute, Newton, Massachusetts, October 12, 2004. (Link)
• Farell, Amy, Series of Talks at Police Executive Research Forum Workshop entitled By the Numbers: A Guide to Analyzing Race Data from Vehicle Stops. Talks included "Getting Started with Data Collection," "Calculating a Driving Population Estimate" and "Drawing Conclusions from the Data" Talks were presented on July 13-14, 2004 in Las Vegas, Nevada and August 24-25, 2004 in Kansas City, Missouri. (Link)
• Farrell, Amy. “Race and Gender Differences in Downward Departures from the Federal Sentencing Guidelines” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Criminology, San Francisco, California, November, 2000. (Link)
• Farrell, Amy. “Structural Definitions of the “Ordinary Family”: Gender, Race and Class Illusions in ‘Extraordinary Family Circumstance’ Departures for Federal Sentences” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, Washington D.C., August, 2000. (Link)
• Farrell, Amy. “Women, Crime and Drugs: Testing the Effectiveness of Therapeutic Community Participation” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Eastern Sociological Association, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1998. (Link)