Books
Caution: Door May Open — A Memoir (In progress)
Caution: Door May Open is a memoir of how a quest to cure chronic insomnia led me to reform my relationship with my body and, ultimately, quit my seventeen-year career in academia. Through a collage of vignettes, poetry, prose, journal entries, and emails, Caution shows how, over four years, I struggled to transform myself from a head-on-a-stick academic to a human being attuned to bodily sensations and intuition. External events including tenure deadlines, the coronavirus pandemic, a summer of policing turmoil, a broken leg, and sabbatical test my resolve to live a slower, more grounded life. After one more trial semester, I finally chose a healthier, more sustainable life. Although not everyone can quit their careers without a backup plan, Caution tells a broader story of how learning to listen inward can lead mid-career women to more fulfilling and satisfying lives than we might ever have thought possible.
Research Methods for Criminal Justice Students (Monica Williams, 2022)
Research Methods is an open-access textbook for undergraduate and graduate students in criminal justice research methods courses. It includes content from two previous works (Bhattacherjee’s (2012) Social science research: Principles, methods, and practices and Blackstone’s (2012) Principles of sociological inquiry: Qualitative and quantitative methods) along with my own additions based on my extensive experience conducting qualitative and quantitative research in social science settings as well as mentoring students through the research process.
The Sex Offender Housing Dilemma: Community Activism, Safety, and Social Justice (NYU Press, 2018)
No community wants a sex offender in their midst. While media accounts would have us believe that vigilantes across the country lie in wait for sexual predators who move into their neighborhoods, responses to sex offenders more often involve collective campaigns that direct outrage toward political and criminal justice systems. Instead of vigilantism, this book argues that people more often leverage moral, political, and/or legal authority to keep identified sex offenders out of their neighborhoods.
The Sex Offender Housing Dilemma uses data from four years of research, including 70 in-depth interviews, participant observations, and studies of numerous media sources to reveal the origins and characteristics of community responses to sexually violent predator (SVP) placements in California. With meticulous documentation and thought-provoking analysis, Dr. Williams provokes debate on the role of communities in the implementation of criminal justice policies, while also addressing the responsibility of government institutions to community members and people being released from closed institutions. The Sex Offender Housing Dilemma promotes civic engagement as a way to strengthen communities, increase public safety, and ensure government accountability.
Essays
“One of Them” (Utah’s Best Poetry & Prose 2024, League of Utah Writers)
A year before earning tenure, an invitation to a police awards ceremony threw me into turmoil. They wanted to give me an award for my research on public opinion of the department, but as a social justice reformer, I didn’t know how to reconcile our collaboration with ongoing police violence. When I finally decided to go, a new dilemma arose that taught me the depths and consequences of my desire to prove myself even within hyper-masculine, patriarchal institutions that I often critiqued for their perpetuation of violence and inequality. “One of Them” tells the story of what happened when I defied my feminist sensibilities and chose to wear high heels to the ceremony. When I did, I found that, rather than blending in, the heels made me feel vulnerable and dependent on others. As the ceremony progressed, I began to wonder what exactly I’d been trying to fit into when I wanted so desperately to blend in with the crowd. Although I left the ceremony berating myself and reeling from the dehumanizing effects of toxic masculinity, the essay shows how I healed my internal rift through compassionate attention to the complex reality of being a flawed human being living in an imperfect world. Through the lens of one woman’s shoe choices, “One of Them” reveals the internal consequences of the tough decisions that activists have to make when the worlds we strive for collide with the realities of deeply entrenched, unequal social structures.
This essay won third place in the General Creative Nonfiction category of the Olive Woolley Burt Awards for Creative Writing. It’s adapted from my memoir in progress.
“My Body is (Not) the Problem” (We Are Dangerous, 2023 League of Utah Writers Anthology)
In seventh grade, I was called to the principal’s office for the first and only time in my life. The principal, I learned, was concerned that my outfit was distracting the boys. Eventually, my mom came to the rescue, defending me instead of siding with the principal. In doing so, she taught me a powerful lesson that girls are not responsible for boys’ behavior. By analyzing the sexism and heroism inherent in this story, My Body is (Not) the Problem shows the harmful implications of girls being punished for their clothing choices, the importance of modeling strong responses to sexist accusations, and the surprising way in which the stereotype of girls being responsible for boys’ behavior shaped how I told my story despite my strong feminist sensibilities. This essay is adapted from my memoir in progress.
“Creating a New Me” (In progress)
Creating a New Me is the story of my struggle to integrate my old self with the new after I resigned from a seventeen-year career in academia.
Short stories
“Dinner and a Movie” (In progress)
Estelle, a woman in her eighties, tests her relationship with her husband, Harold, by pretending to be out when he arrives home expecting dinner. To her surprise, Estelle learns as much about herself from the experiment as she does about Harold and their relationship.
Informal Essays, Flash Fiction, Poetry, Travel
Monica’s Musings
I post a variety of travel essays, flash fiction, portions of longer fiction projects, poetry, and other informal musings on my blog.
Medium Page
The essays on my Medium page apply a sociological perspective to current events and life as an academic. I’ve written on topics such as the role of rape myths in debates over affirmative consent legislation, imposter syndrome triggering trauma responses, resigning from my position as a tenured professor, the misreading of political polls in mainstream media, and more.
Academic Articles
My academic articles have appeared in Criminology, Law and Policy, Law & Social Inquiry, Police Practice and Research, Journal of Criminal Justice, Journal of Crime and Justice, and Journal of Community Engagement in Higher Education. My research focuses on police-community relations, sex offender policy, law and society, and undergraduate education. Specifically, my published articles include studies on public support for body-worn cameras in policing, why some states resist sex offender residence restrictions, how laws produce siting conflicts over sexually violent predator placements, the role of race and place in community crime control, stereotypes of adolescent rape, public opinion on penal policy, and community-engagement in undergraduate education.