Garrick Percival earned his Ph.D. in political science at the University of California, Riverside in 2005. He comes to SJSU after teaching several years at the University of Minnesota--Duluth. His work focuses on American politics, primarily the nexus between crime policy, racial politics, and inequality at the state and local levels of government. He is currently working on a book manuscript titled: Smart on Crime: How a Shift in Political Attention is Changing Penal Policy in America. The book investigates the changing nature of crime politics and the promise and limits of penal policy reform in California and other U.S. states that, for a generation,have long positioned themselves politically to be "tough-on-crime." His work has appeared in State Politics and Policy Quarterly, Social Science Quarterly, Political Research Quarterly, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, and the Policy Studies Journal, among other outlets.