Priscilla Ocen

Priscilla Ocen is Professor of Law at Loyola Law School, where she teaches criminal procedure, reproductive justice, and a seminar on race, gender and the law. Her work explores the ways in which the intersection of race, gender and class make women of color vulnerable to various forms of violence and criminalization. Ocen’s writing has published extensively in academic law journals as well as in popular media outlets. She is co-author (along with Kimberlé Crenshaw and Jyoti Nanda) of the influential policy report, Black Girls Matter: Pushed Out, Overpoliced and Underprotected (2015). She received the inaugural PEN America Writing for Justice Literary Fellowship (2018–19) for her research exploring the struggles of women on paroleProfessor Ocen also served as a 2019–20 Fulbright Fellow, based out of Makerere University School of Law in Kampala, Uganda, where she studied the relationship between gender-based violence and women’s incarceration. In 2021, Professor Ocen was appointed to the California Penal Code Revision Committee by Governor Gavin Newsome. Professor Ocen received a J.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law and a B.A. from San Diego State University.