Professor Donna Coker worked with local community organization, Beyond the Bars, along with students and colleagues in sociology and public health, to survey households in Opa-Locka, Florida, to determine how many households had a resident or family member who had experienced incarceration. The survey was supported by a University of Miami Racial Justice grant.
Additionally, she is currently assisting with a survey of service providers and community organizations regarding policing and gender violence. The survey title is Miami Community Assessment of Police Responses to Gender Violence.
Coker also has a forthcoming book chapter in the International Encyclopedia of Restorative Justice, North America volume. The chapter is titled “Restorative Responses to Intimate Partner Violence & Sexual Harm in the U.S. & Canada,” and is co-authored with Daniel Del Gobbo.
Professor Coker’s scholarship focuses on criminal law, gender, and race inequality. She is a nationally recognized expert in intimate partner violence (IPV) law and policy. Her research concerns the connection between economic vulnerability and IPV; restorative justice responses to IPV and sexual harm; and the intersections of gender and race subordination in criminal law doctrine, policy, and application. Her research is interdisciplinary and influenced by scholarship in critical race feminism, restorative justice, public health, and criminology.
Coker has twice received the Provost’s Research Award in 2017 and 2021 and was awarded the Hausler Golden Apple teaching award in 2015. Professor Coker also served as Academic Associate Dean from 2005-2009.
