distinguised board members

Distinguished Board Member

Illinois, USA

Dr. Stephanie Jerstad is a professor of Criminology at Millersville University in PA.  Dr. Jerstad’s research focuses on corrections, barriers to re-entry, collateral consequences, and housing instability (i.e., homelessness, access to long-term care facilities).  Specifically, her research concentrates on macro- and micro-level policies with an emphasis on sexual offense policies.

Stephanie’s Ph.D. dissertation research at Southern Illinois University focused on the willingness of long-term care facilities to accept persons convicted of sexual offending into their care as residents.  The study examined state policy, state punitiveness, organizational characteristics, and attitudes and perceptions of long-term care facility administrators regarding policies that prevent them from admitting someone on the registry or with a prior sexual offense conviction.

Stephanie is very passionate when it comes to organizational policies and state laws which limit certain groups of people from accessing long-term care when everyone should have the right to receive long-term care, regardless of their criminal history, during their last days of life.

A forthcoming study is “A review of laws addressing access to long-term care facilities for people convicted of sex crimes: Prevention of harms in the context of public health goals”. (Jerstad, S., Levenson, Jill S.)