Amy "Drea" Martinez

is a first-generation Xicana from southern California with Mexican immigrant parents. She is currently a doctoral candidate in the Criminal Justice Department at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and an Adjunct Lecturer for the Sociology Department at John Jay College. She will be receiving her doctoral degree Spring 2022 and will pursue a career in academia. A ten toes on the ground ethnographer, her dissertation examines the intersections of mass incarceration, settler colonialism, and law enforcement and how that plays a role in the hyper policing of Mexican/Chicano gangs.

Her research interests broadly include: Mexican/Chicano Gang Culture; Gang policing; Correctional Education; Juvenile/Criminal legal systems; Urban Ethnography; Mass Incarceration; Third World & Indigenous Qualitative Research Methods; Visual Sociology; U.S. (settler) colonialism; Police use of lethal force; Prison & Police Abolition. When she is not hitting the books, you can find her organizing for, by, and with her community for a world without prisons, ICE, and police.