Rate My Professor Lisa Pasko

Lisa Pasko is a Professor of Sociology and Criminology at the University of Denver, where she serves as Chair of the Department of Sociology and Criminology and Director of the Socio-Legal Studies program. She is affiliated with the Gender and Women's Studies Program. Pasko holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Hawaii at Manoa (2006), an M.A. in Sociology from the University of Nevada, Reno (1997), and a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Nevada, Reno (1994).

Prior to her academic career, she worked for the Hawaii Department of the Attorney General, profiling serious and violent youthful offenders and studying female delinquency and programming responses. Her research examines adolescent behavior, the female offender, youth violence, delinquency, the juvenile justice system, sexualities, commercial sexual exploitation, and the gendered nature of juvenile justice. Notable projects include a Colorado Division of Criminal Justice grant-funded study, 'In and Out of the System: Understanding and Addressing the Female Juvenile Offender in Colorado,' and an Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention grant, 'Characteristics and Predictors of Juvenile Diversion Program Success for Girls: A Focus on the Latina First-Time Offender.' She has chaired the Colorado Coalition for Girls and evaluated the InterCept girl offender intervention program in Colorado Springs.

Pasko is co-author of books including The Female Offender: Girls, Women, and Crime, Girls, Women, and Crime: Selected Readings, and Latinas in the Criminal Justice System: Victims, Targets, and Offenders. Key publications feature 'Running the Gauntlet: Understanding Commercial Sexual Exploitation' (2016) and 'Damaged Daughters: The History of Girls' Sexuality and the Juvenile Justice System' (2010). She co-edits Feminist Criminology and teaches courses such as Drugs and Society, Discipline and Punishment, The Female Offender, Masculinities, Sexualities and the Law, and Murder in America. Pasko has received the Meda Chesney-Lind Award from the Western Society of Criminology and leads initiatives like the 4D Fridays criminal justice practicum.