Beth E. Richie is a sociologist who has been an activist and an advocate in the movement to end violence against women for the past twenty years. The emphasis of her work has been on the ways that race/ethnicity and social position affect women's experience of violence, focusing on the experiences of African American battered women and sexual assault survivors. She has been a trainer and a technical assistant to local and national organizations, and is a frequent lecturer for grassroots, professional as well as academic organizations. Dr. Richie, Head of the African American Studies Department, is also on the faculty of the Departments of Criminal Justice and Women's Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Senior Research Consultant with the Institute on Violence, Inc., which is a model program funded by the National Institute for Justice; and a member of the Steering Committee for the Institute on Domestic Violence in the African American Community.

Dr. Richie is the author of numerous articles and books, including the book Compelled to Crime: The Gender Entrapment of Black Battered Women , which is taught in many college courses and is cited in the popular press for its original arguments concerning race, gender and crime. Her current work is exploring the gender dimensions of youth violence, and focuses on African American women and girls who come from low income communities. Dr. Richie is also interested in addressing the conditions of confinement in women's prisons, an issue upon which she is a frequent lecturer and invited speaker, nationally and internationally.