Photo by Buzz McClain, George Mason University

My curriculum vitae is available here: Jan 2026

Published works

Books

Democracy in Captivity: Prisoners, patients, and the limits of self-government (University of California Press, 2023). [For purchase: UC Press / Amazon / Powells. Free with library access: JStor / DeGruyter]

At Risk. Under contract with the University of California Press (expected completion 2027).

Articles

Berk, Christopher D. 2025. “Between Worlds: Identity, Culture, and Ambivalence in a Boarding School for ‘At-Risk’ Youth.” Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics 10: 580-602. [Published version here. Preprint available at SocArXiv / SSRN]

Berk, Christopher D. 2023. “The Submerged Prison State: Punishment, private interests, and the politics of public accountability.” Punishment & Society 26, no. 1: 91-108. 2024. [Published version here. Preprint available at SocArXiv / SSRN]

Berk, Christopher D. 2021. “Must penal law be insulated from public influence?” Law and Philosophy 40, 67-87. [Published version here. Preprint available at SocArXiv / PhilPapers / SSRN]

Berk, Christopher D. 2019. “Reply to Elizabeth Scott, Laurence Steinberg, David Tanenhaus, and James Backstrom.” Law & Social Inquiry 44, no. 3: 787-790. [Published version here.]

Berk, Christopher D. 2019. “Childhood, development, and the troubled foundations of Miller v. Alabama.” Law & Social Inquiry 44, no. 3: 752-770. [Published version here. Preprint available at SocArXiv / PhilPapers / SSRN.]

  • Symposium at LSI devoted to this article is available here.

Berk, Christopher D. 2018. “On Prison Democracy: The Politics of Participation in a Maximum Security Prison.” Critical Inquiry 44, no. 2: 275-302. [Published version here. Preprint available at SocArXiv / PhilPapers / SSRN.]

Berk, Christopher D. 2010. “Investment Talk: Comments on the Use of the Language of Investment in Prison Reform Advocacy.” Carceral Notebooks 6: 115-129. [Published version here. Preprint available at SocArXiv]

Works in Progress

“Scripted Intimacy: How institutions make intimacy governable.” Working paper.