Meet Dr. Alison Boehmer

Bio

Dr. Alison Boehmer (she/her) is an assistant professor in the department of political science at Morehouse College.

Dr. Boehmer received her Ph.D. in political science at the University of California San Diego. Her primary research and teaching interests are in American political economy and institutions, and contentious politics (e.g., state repression, social movements). In particular, she studies the relationship between coercive labor institutions, state political control, and people's capacity for and strategies around contentious politics. Her current book project studies whether and how coercive, racialized labor structures in U.S. state prisons operate as a form of political control over incarcerated people's political activity. To investigate this relationship, she interviews formerly incarcerated people about their experiences with labor and political activity inside, and collects quantitative data on labor arrangements and collective action inside prisons. Her data collection efforts, empowered by a team of undergraduate researchers, have led to the creation of a new dataset of over 420 unique political actions across over 230 prisons from 1990-2019. Another stream of Dr. Boehmer's research focuses on empirical legal studies, particularly post-conviction law, such as prosecutorial discretion in filing charges that lead to Life Without Parole sentences.

Beginning in fall 2027, Dr. Boehmer will become Director of Morehouse College's Pre-Law Program. She teaches classes on American government and politics, protest, and law.