Professor, Criminology and Criminal Justice
Mark Leymon is a quantitative research methodologist and justice policy researcher. Leymon has expertise in the racial disparities in the criminal justice system, sentencing policies, research methods & statistics and women, race, politics, social change & justice.
Leymon's most recent research focuses on alternatives to imprisonment, including diversion programs and specialty courts, such as drug and mental health courts. He has also been involved in legislative work, including efforts to reform sentencing, such as juvenile justice reforms and Measure 11, as well as Justice Reinvestment initiatives.
Past work has focused on the effects of sentencing reforms on several avenues of imprisonment including pervasive racial and ethnic disparities in imprisonment. Leymon has also studied the connection between politics, the economy, and criminal justice policy and the impacts on people of color, examining what drives policy changes and why they have disproportionately affected people of color.
Leymon has also worked on the impacts of sentencing lengths on recidivism and has explored the experiences of women in the justice system. He works to develop robust statistical models that provide results that can be used to demonstrate what is actually happening in the criminal justice system in an attempt to better inform our arguments and make sound recommendations for change.
See faculty academic profile.