Nicole Hahn Rafter

Nicole Hahn Rafter (1939–2016) was a feminist criminology professor at Northeastern University. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, achieved her Master of Arts in Teaching from Harvard University, and obtained a Ph.D. in Criminal Justice from State University of New York in Albany. She also wrote an introduction for Cesare Lombroso’s Criminal Women in 2004.

In the first decade of the 21st century, Rafter published three works relating to crime films and criminology. These works include Badfellas: Movie Psychos, Popular Culture, and Law, Shots in the Mirror: Crime Films and Society, and Crime, Film, and Criminology: Recent Sex Crime Movies.

Rafter contributed to feminist criminology through her research and literature on the female prison system starting in 1975. She wrote her last contribution in 1999. Arguing that research and writing at the time only focused on men and was written by men, Rafter led the way in documenting historical gender relations in prisons using, for example, the New York State Prison for Women at Auburn. Another early article Rafter published in 1985 which has been cited six times claims that women in state prisons from 1800-1935 were only given partial justice documenting the differences and the emphasis given to male prison systems. Rafter’s work on female prison systems occurred during the time when feminism was becoming a focal point in critical criminology.

Rafter’s contributions to feminist criminology at Northeastern University in particular included her creating the syllabus for one of the first courses on women and crime and crime films.

Recognition

Northeastern University recognizes one of Rafter’s areas of expertise as biological theories of crime.

Honors and awards 2009–2010 Fulbright Fellow Austria 2009 Edwin H. Sutherland award from the American Society of Criminology 2009 Allen Austin Bartolemew award for Best Paper for Criminology's Darkest Hour: Biocriminology in Nazi Germany 1999 American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, Hervey B. Wilbur Historic Preservation Award 1998 Distinguished Alumni Award, State University of New York at Albany (School of Criminal Justice)