Tony Cheng is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Duke University. He studies how the way state power is legitimized shapes inequalities within communities. His 2024 book called “The Policing Machine: Enforcement, Endorsements, & the Illusion of Public Input” (University of Chicago Press) is about how police resist institutional reforms by cultivating political capital from the community constituents they empower.

His research has appeared in journals like the American Journal of Sociology, Law & Society Review, Criminology, and Social Problems. It has won awards from the Law & Society Association, American Sociological Association, and American Society of Criminology, and has been supported by the Russell Sage Foundation and an NSF CAREER Award from the Law & Science Program. He has a Sociology PhD from Yale University and a J.D. from NYU Law School.

He has served as a committee member for the Law & Society Association’s Graduate Student Workshop/Early Career Workshop (2023) and for the Dissertation Prize Committee (2021).