Benjamin Levin
Professor of Law
Office
Anheuser-Busch Hall
Room #552
Faculty Links
Featured Scholarship
-
Benjamin Levin, Criminal Law Exceptionalism, 108 Va. L. Rev. 1381 (2022).
-
Benjamin Levin, What’s Wrong with Police Unions?, 120 Colum. L. Rev. 1333 (2020).
-
Benjamin Levin, The Consensus Myth in Criminal Justice Reform, 117 Mich. L. Rev. 259 (2018).
About Benjamin Levin
Benjamin Levin studies criminal law and legal theory. His current research examines criminal justice reform and its relationship to other movements for social and economic change. His scholarship has appeared or is forthcoming in journals including the California Law Review, the Columbia Law Review, the Michigan Law Review, the Virginia Law Review, and the Harvard Law Review Forum. His writing for general audiences has appeared in Salon, Slate, and Time. He also serves as the Chair of the AALS Section on Criminal Law and as a Senior Contributor for OnLabor.org.
At Washington University, Levin teaches Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure: Adjudication, and Criminal Justice Reform Movements. In 2024, he received the David M. Becker Professor of the Year Award. Before joining the WashU faculty, he taught at the University of Colorado Law School, where he received the Excellence in Teaching Award in 2022 and 2018, the Outstanding New Faculty Member Award in 2018, and the Gordon J. Gamm Justice Award in 2020. Prior to joining the Colorado Law faculty, Levin served as a Climenko Fellow and Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School, where he received the Harvard Law School Student Government Teaching and Advising Award.
Before entering academia, Levin worked at the civil rights firm of Neufeld Scheck and Brustin, LLP, where he focused on cases involving police and prosecutorial misconduct. He also clerked for Judge Leonard I. Garth of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and Judge Lawrence E. Kahn of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York. Levin earned his B.A., with distinction, from Yale University and his J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School, where he received the Irving Oberman Memorial Award for law and social change.
Education
- J.D., Harvard Law School, 2011
- B.A., Yale University, 2007
Courses
- Criminal Law
- Criminal Procedure: Adjudication
- Criminal Justice Reform Movements
Scholarship
- Academic PublicationsThe Limits of “Punishment,” 114 CALIFORNIA LAW REVIEW (forthcoming 2026)
- Disentangling Safety and Accountability in Criminal Justice Policy, 111 IOWA LAW REVIEW (forthcoming 2026)
- “Progressive” Prosecutors and “Proper” Punishments, in THE OXFORD HANDBOOK OF SENTENCING (Ryan King & Michael Light, eds.) (forthcoming Oxford University Press 2025)
- Ten Years and Ten Miles: Reflecting on “Ferguson,” 78 WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF LAW & POLICY 1 (2025) (invited symposium contribution)
- Redistributing Justice, 124 Columbia Law Review 1531 (2024) (with Kate Levine)
- Criminal Law Minimalisms, 101 Washington University Law Review 1771 (2024) (symposium contribution)
- “Progressive” Prosecutors and “Proper” Punishments, in The Oxford Handbook of Sentencing (Ryan King & Michael Light, eds.) (forthcoming Oxford University Press 2024)
- After the Criminal Justice System, 98 Washington Law Review 899 (2023)
- Prosecuting the Crisis, 50 Fordham Urban Law Journal 989 (2023) (invited symposium contribution)
- Criminal Law Exceptionalism, 108 Virginia Law Review 1381 (2022)
- Victims’ Rights Revisited, 13 California Law Review Online 30 (2022) (symposium contribution)
- Criminal Justice Expertise, 90 Fordham Law Review 2777 (2022)
- Carceral Progressivism and Animal Victims, in Carceral Logics: Human Incarceration and Animal Confinement (Lori Gruen & Justin Marceau, eds.) (Cambridge University Press 2022)
- Imagining the Progressive Prosecutor, 105 Minnesota Law Review 1415 (2021)
- Wage Theft Criminalization, 54 UC Davis Law Review 1429 (2021)
- Decarceration and Default Mental States, 53 Arizona State Law Journal 747 (2021) (invited symposium contribution)
- Review, A Pattern of Violence: How the Law Classifies Crimes and What that Means for Justice by David Alan Sklansky, Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Books (2021) (invited review)
- What’s Wrong with Police Unions?, 120 Columbia Law Review 1333 (2020)
- De-Democratizing Criminal Law, 39 Criminal Justice Ethics 74 (2020) (peer reviewed; invited review essay)
- Criminal Law in Crisis, 92 Colorado Law Review Forum 1 (2020) (invited essay)
- Mens Rea Reform and Its Discontents, 109 Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 491 (2019)
- The Consensus Myth in Criminal Justice Reform, 117 Michigan Law Review 259 (2018)
- Rethinking the Boundaries of “Criminal Justice”, 15 Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law 619 (2018) (peer reviewed; invited review essay)
- Criminal Employment Law, 39 Cardozo Law Review 2265 (2018)
- Guns and Drugs, 84 Fordham Law Review 2173 (2016)
- Values and Assumptions in Criminal Adjudication, 129 Harvard Law Review Forum 379 (2016) (invited response essay)
- Criminal Labor Law, 36 Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law 43 (2016)
- Inmates for Rent, Sovereignty for Sale: The Global Prison Market, 23 Southern California Interdisciplinary Law Review 509 (2014)
- American Gangsters: RICO, Criminal Syndicates, and Conspiracy Law as Market Control, 48 Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review 105 (2013)
- De-Naturalizing Criminal Law: Of Public Perceptions and Procedural Protections, 76 Albany Law Review 1777 (2013) (invited contribution)
- Made in the USA: Corporate Responsibility and Collective Identity in the American Automotive Industry, 53 Boston College Law Review 821 (2012)
- Blue Collar Crime: Conspiracy, Organized Labor, and the Anti-Union Civil RICO Claim, 75 Albany Law Review 559 (2012)
- Note, A Defensible Defense?: Reexamining Castle Doctrine Statutes, 47 Harvard Journal on Legislation 523 (2010)
Selected Columns and Commentary
- A New Proposal Sure Sounds Like an Effort to Harvest Prisoners’ Organs, Slate, February 7, 2023
- Rethinking the State, Inquest, May 26, 2022
- Criminal Records, Employment Discrimination, and the Limits of Back-End Solutions, OnLabor,
January 20, 2022
- More Criminalization Isn’t the Answer to Gun Violence, Jacobin, September 1, 2021
- Colorado Supreme Court Fails to Protect State Residents as Coronavirus Grows Exponentially in Jails, The Appeal, April 17, 2020 (with Aya Gruber)
- Elizabeth Warren’s Proposal to Imprison More Corporate Executives Is a Bad Idea, Slate, April 4, 2019 (with Carissa Byrne Hessick)
- Prosecutorial Power, Prisons, and the Problem with Wage Theft Criminalization: A Reply, OnLabor, April 30, 2018
- Rethinking Wage Theft Criminalization, OnLabor, April 13, 2018
- Dear Jeff Sessions, Prosecuting Guns More Aggressively Won’t Make Us Safer, The Appeal,
July 19, 2017
- Criminal Employment Law, OnLabor, April 13, 2017
- It’s Time to Rethink “Violent” Crime, Salon, June 19, 2016
- Obama’s Post-Prison Jobs Plan Is Not Enough, Time, May 12, 2016
- It’s Worse Than Just the ’94 Crime Bill, Salon, May 6, 2016
- Second Circuit Drops the Ball on Workers’ Rights, OnLabor, April 27, 2016
- After Friedrichs: Exclusive Representation and Workplace Democracy, Casetext, April 4, 2016
- Free Riding and Friedrichs, OnLabor, January 13, 2016
- L.R.B. Missed Shot by Declining Jurisdiction in Northwestern Football Case for “Stability”, OnLabor, August 20, 2015
Media
Honors & Awards
- David M. Becker Professor of the Year Award (selected by student body vote) (2024)
- Colorado Law Faculty Excellence Award (selected by student body vote) (2022, 2018)
- Gordon J. Gamm Justice Award (2020) (recognizing outstanding Colorado Law Faculty scholarship addressing critical issues in justice)
- Colorado Law Outstanding New Faculty Award (selected by student body vote) (2018)
- Colorado Law Hooding Professor (selected by graduating class vote) (2023, 2022)
- Harvard Law School Student Government Teaching & Advising Award (selected by the student body) (2016)