Office:   Raubinger 460
Phone:   (973)720-2417
Email:   furstg@wpunj.edu
Office Hours:   Tue-Thrs 10 - 11 a.m.; 12:30 - 2 p.m.; Thurs 3:30 - 5:30 p.m., and by appointment

Department: Sociology
Position: Associate Professor and Criminal Justice Director

Gennifer Furst received her B.A. in psychology (with a sociology minor) from Connecticut College and her M.A. in psychology (with a concentration in evaluation methodology) from Claremont Graduate University. She received her doctorate in criminal justice (with a concentration in corrections) from CUNY Graduate Center.

Dr. Furst is the Department of Sociology’s Criminal Justice Director.  Dr. Furst’s research interests focus on issues of incarceration. She published the first national survey of prison-based animal programs in the US. A book based on that work was recently published.  Additionally, she is interested in race and the administration of criminal justice, the death penalty, the use of animals in the criminal justice system, and the relationship between drugs and crime.

Most recently she had a chapter, “The Experiences of an Outsider Spending Time Inside,” published in an edited book, Experiences in Corrections. She had a book review of “Do Prisons Make Us Safer? The Benefits and Costs of the Prison Boom” published in Criminal Justice Review.  She is the co-author of a book chapter examining how issues of race and ethnicity are incorporated in college criminology/criminal justice courses. She had an article about how prison-based animal programs change participants published in a major reader about human-animal relations. She also had a reader she edited as a supplement to Criminology texts published. Her current research examines the changing nature of contraband in prisons. 

Prior to teaching full-time, Professor Furst worked at one of the country’s three independent prison monitoring agencies, The Correctional Association of New York. Before coming to WPU Professor Furst taught at CUNY, John Jay College and Bronx Community College, as well as The College of New Jersey.

Dr. Furst lives in beautiful northern Hudson County, NJ with her dog and cats.  She loves all things Pearl Jam, especially Eddie Vedder.

Selected Bibliography

Furst, Gennifer. 2011. “The Experiences of Outsider Spending Time Inside.” Chapter in Experiences in Corrections, edited by Michael Johnson. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Furst, Gennifer. 2011. Animal Programs in Prison: A Comprehensive Assessment.  Boulder, CO: FirstForum Press.

Furst, Gennifer. 2010. “Do Prisons Make Us Safer? The Benefits and Costs of the Prison Boom” book review published in Criminal Justice Review 35: 251-253.

Furst, Gennifer. 2009. "How Prison-Based Animal Programs Change Prisoner Participants." Pp. 293-302 in Between the Species: Readings in Human-Animal Relations, edited by A. Arluke and C. Sanders. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Furst, Gennifer, ed. 2009. Contemporary Readings in Criminal Justice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Furst, Gennifer, and N. Phillips. 2008. "Incorporating Race/Ethnicity into Criminology/Criminal Justice Education." Pp. 57-68 in Teaching Race and Ethnicity in Higher Education: Perspectives from North America, edited by Emily Horowitz. Birmingham, UK: The Higher Education Academy Network.

Furst, Gennifer. 2007. "Prison-Based Animal Programs in the United States: Implications for Desistance." Prison Service Journal 172 (July):38-44.

Furst, Gennifer. 2007. "Without Words to Get in the Way: Symbolic Interaction in Prison-Based Animal Programs." Qualitative Sociology Review 3: 96-109.