Charlene Freyberg is a scholar of criminal justice and a former federal investigator and corrections officer. She received her B.A. in Political Science Pre-Law and Criminal Justice from Washington State University, her M.S. in Criminal Justice from Weber State University, and worked on her Ph.D. (ABD) at Washington State University as well. In 2005 she received the Outstanding Graduate Student award at Weber State University and the Paul L. Beckett Graduate Fellowship at Washington State University in 2006. Charlene was a teaching assistant at the Waterford Institute of Technology in Waterford, Ireland for the criminal justice program. She has been published in the Critical Issues in Justice and Politics Journal on higher education of inmates in prison programming and on serial killer Gary Ridgeway. Her research and writing have focused on corrections programming, parenting in prison, death penalty issues regarding the mentally ill, and human trafficking in Washington State. She has taught at Weber State University, Washington State University, and other colleges over the past 11 years. Charlene has been at Bellevue College for six years.