Biography: Sarah Brayne is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology. In her work, she uses qualitative and quantitative methods to understand whether and how data-intensive surveillance shapes individual trajectories and population-level disparities. Her first book, Predict and Surveil: Data, Discretion, and the Future of Policing, draws on ethnographic research within the Los Angeles Police Department to understand the social implications of law enforcement’s use of predictive analytics and new surveillance technologies.

Current projects investigate whether and how exposure to the criminal legal system shapes racial and ethnic disparities in health, aging, and mortality; how social media data is used in the criminal legal process; and role of surveillance in forced migration.

Prior to joining the faculty at Stanford, Professor Brayne taught at the University of Texas at Austin, where she co-founded the Texas Prison Education Initiative. She holds a B.A. in Sociology from the University of British Columbia, an M.A. and Ph.D. in Sociology from Princeton University, and completed a postdoc at Microsoft Research.

Abstract: In the United States, racial disparities in life expectancy are well-documented. However, the role of incarceration is largely absent from this research. This gap is striking, given the disproportionate exposure to incarceration among Black men. In this talk, I use administrative and vital statistics data to understand the impact of incarceration on racial disparities in life expectancy. This research highlights the complex interplay between incarceration and health, ultimately arguing there is a critical need for analyses of data on incarceration in population research.