Associate Professor of criminology & criminal justice
@UNOSCCJ
. Always a Gamecock though // research interests: police, procedural justice, use of force
Published online today in Criminology
"When police pull back: Neighborhood-level effects of de-policing on violent and property crime"
Summary and link to (free) full text below.
#OpenAccess
#AcademicTwitter
An economist did an experiment by emailing ~2000 police agencies asking for help filing a complaint. He randomized the “sender’s” name to signal race/ethnicity and sex. Overall RR 67%; agencies less likely to respond to emails signed w/Black or Hispanic names.
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"A reliable way to make people believe in falsehoods is frequent repetition, because familiarity is not easily distinguished from truth."
- from Kahneman's 𝑇ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔, 𝐹𝑎𝑠𝑡 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑆𝑙𝑜𝑤
No discernible effect of
#COVID19
on fatal officer-involved shootings. In 2020, we're averaging 2.8 fatal OIS per day, right on par with each of the last five years.
New article suggests under-policing, rather than over-policing, is the problem. IDK where I come down on it yet but it was interesting and made me think. What do you think Twitter - can we have a civil discussion about it?
Full text:
Since George Floyd was killed by police in Minneapolis on May 25th, there have been ~450 pieces of legislation aimed at police reform introduced in 31 states.
I'm completely stunned to have received the 2021 Outstanding Young Experimental Criminologist Award from
@ASCRM41
@DivExpCrim
. I'm so thankful for my colleagues and collaborators, and continuous support from
@UNOSCCJ
/
@UNOmaha
.
Also thrilled to still be considered "young" 😂
In his latest for
@nytimes
,
@Crimealytics
estimates that in 2020, the United States may have surpassed 20,000 homicides for the first time since 1995.
Journalists, I am once again begging you to stop insinuating that every police use of deadly force should result in murder or manslaughter charges being filed.
Today I discovered The Historical Violence Database. It's an incredible resource, including data for the US, Asia, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. With it, I plotted NYC's homicide rate *all the way back to 1797.*
#AcademicTwitter
Access it here:
I'm developing a new PhD seminar on cutting-edge research in policing for next semester. Each week, an early-career researcher will join us as a guest speaker during the last hour. Topics and guest speakers are listed here:
I'm very excited to introduce the VIPR (Violence Intervention & Policing Research) Lab in
@UNOSCCJ
, a collaborative effort with
@sadaf_hashimi
and
@JessieHuff19
. Check out our website for more info.
Today my brother goes under the knife to (hopefully) remove a cancerous tumor. If you’ve got some to spare, please send some positive energy/prayers his way.
As of 1/1/21, every police department in California will be required to document when their officers draw & point their guns at someone (per SB-230).
Every department in the country should do this. It’s a critical data point, and it may even save lives:
Jacob knows we’re aware of his claims. We’ve said as much in multiple email exchanges with him. We’ll share more details soon. I suggest people wait before reaching conclusions. We’re not going to hold court on Twitter. Here's a timeline to give a sense of how this has played out
Natural experiment now underway in San Francisco, where police may no longer make stops “for things like driving without registration tags or broken tail lights.”
Big bro starts his second battle with cancer tomorrow. Please send us your thoughts or prayers or positive energy or whatever you usually do in these situations. 🙏🏼
In 2021, nearly 1 in 5 Americans said they would not approve of a police officer striking an adult male who was *physically assaulting them.*
Source: General Social Survey
The first 6 papers I submitted to Criminology all got rejected. My 7th attempt - this one co-authored with
@michaelsierraa
and
@smourtgos
- resulted in my first publication in Criminology.
Moral: keep shooting your shot 🏀🗑️
#AcademicTwitter
This looks like a very interesting and important paper. Lots of RCT evidence here but most of it (with one exception that I can think of) is clouded by potential spillovers and measurement issues. The sentiment finding is intriguing.
I wrote about the data on police violence, what’s changed since 2014, and how the data can help us identify solutions to reduce police violence nationwide.
“The proportion of threat perception failure shootings declined by nearly 80% after DPD adopted the point-and-report policy.”
“No increase in the proportion of these incidents in which an officer was injured. Officer injuries actually declined slightly.”
My colleagues and I have a forthcoming paper on the staffing crisis in policing. Brief summary is up on my website ⤵️
Elevated Police Turnover following the Summer of George Floyd Protests: A Synthetic Control Study
Hey look,
@washingtonpost
finally updated its police shootings database. There was no 13% decline in 2021 as reported over the last month. But if you were paying attention to the other databases, you knew that already.
cc:
@fatalencounters
@samswey
New article out today in Criminology with
@JustinTPickett
,
@agrahamphd
, & Frank Cullen. Two national survey experiments showing police diversity reduces Black Americans’ fear of mistreatment.
Pre-print version:
Published version:
Introducing *Dr.*
@btregle
…
🎉 Congrats on reaching the finish line! I know you can’t wait to get started at
@UTSA
this fall. And I know you’ll continue to make
@UNOSCCJ
proud!
This just doesn't square with the data I've seen. Cops did start leaving their agencies at higher rates in the second half of 2020. The problem with this analysis is it ignores the fact that many cops didn't quit *the profession*, just *their agency.* (1/2)
Twenty years’ worth of systematic reviews of the evidence base in policing - and best of all they’re FREELY AVAILABLE! Also featuring an editorial introduction by
@Jerry_Ratcliffe
:
I've (mostly) pieced together 150 years of data on people killed by police in Chicago.
• Sources in legend
• Older data likely less accurate
• Even from 1875-1930, shootings appear to be the cause of 95% of deaths
• I still haven't found totals for 1992-2009
Academia is one wild rollercoaster. But it’s important to share stories about our failures in addition to our successes. So I’m happy to announce the grant proposal my colleagues and I submitted back in April was *not* funded by NIJ. 🎻
@rjochoa
Can't decide if that's more an indication of how good he is and how well they've set Dak up to succeed or how badly they squandered the Romo era.
At the state level, fatal police shooting rates are strongly correlated with the rate at which officers are assaulted by gunfire.
h/t to
@BrandondelPozo
for sparking my curiosity with his earlier tweet.
In March, the LAPD implemented a new policy that limited officers’ discretion to make pretext stops. It worked - stops for minor infractions fell - but here’s the tradeoff.
Full story:
My "semester of firsts" continues!
• 1st time teaching research methods
• 1st time losing an R&R
• 1st time having a conference abstract rejected (x2)
...
• 𝟏𝐬𝐭 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐠𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚 𝐩𝐚𝐩𝐞𝐫 𝐚𝐜𝐜𝐞𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐭 𝑪𝒓𝒊𝒎𝒊𝒏𝒐𝒍𝒐𝒈𝒚!
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I'm building a database of fatal police shootings at the agency-year level, and trying to go back in time as far possible. For 104 agencies, thanks largely to WAPO, I've got data for 2015-22. For a handful of others, I've got data going back ~50 years.
New article published today in
@CPPJournal
. My coauthors and I show that the George Floyd protests caused a significant spike in police officer resignations (but not retirements) in a large western department.
A new pre-registered YouGov experiment finds that providing people with accurate information about police shootings *does not* change their policy preferences for police reform. Support for police reform was primarily associated with race and partisanship.
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Honored to have two chapters (on procedural justice and authority maintenance theory) in the newest edition of “Critical Issues in Policing.” Edited by Roger Dunham, Geoff Alpert, and
@Clempoliceprof
; published by
@wavelandpress
.
I had a surprise waiting for me at the office on Friday. A year or so ago, Sam Walker strolled into my office and said, casually, “I think I’ll write a book about DOJ Pattern or Practice investigations.”
Here’s the result. ~20 years after retiring, he’s still a machine.
“In its first six months, the Support Team Assisted Response program, or STAR, has responded to 748 incidents. None required police or led to arrests or jail time.”
In my career thus far I've received a manuscript rejection letter 38x. I've appealed 3 of those rejections.
Earlier this year, for the 1st time in my career, an editor agreed to revisit the decision.
Today, I was notified it has been accepted.
It DOES happen!
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Lots more uncertainty with the new NIBRS data, but last year's national murder rate was likely the highest it's been since circa 1996-1998.
sources: (1) ;
(2)
Very excited to share that
@MidwesternCJA
selected my article with
@UNOSCCJ
doctoral student
@btregle
and Geoff Alpert for the 2019 Outstanding Paper Award!
Big bro had his last round of chemo a few weeks ago 🥲
🤞🏻 Here’s hoping he’s got a clean bill of health in a few more weeks when he goes back to the doc. Thanks, science.
New paper with
@Clempoliceprof
! We draw on Max Weber’s work to develop a measure of “traditional” police legitimacy, which is much different from the kind of legitimacy that stems from procedural justice.
Quick summary + full text on my website ➡️
These graphics from
@Jerry_Ratcliffe
's new Crime Science article are incredible.
Left: Calls for police service in Philly (2019) weighted by time spent on each call
Right: Medical/public-health dispatch initial classifications v. final call dispositions.
Cool new study in
@CPPJournal
that revisits and reanalyzes data from the classic Kansas City Patrol Experiment. Findings suggest even in areas much larger than "hot spots," proactive patrol had a nontrivial suppression effect on crime.
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My latest research – with
@michaelsierraa
and
@smourtgos
– examines 7 years of
@GunDeaths
data on gun violence directed at police officers. Specifically, we assess claims of a widespread “war on cops.” 🧵
Hot take: the homicide rate didn't spike because of COVID-19 *or* a police legitimacy crisis.
It spiked because of COVID-19 *and* a police legitimacy crisis.
Not sure how anyone can say (in good faith) that one or the other of these things was totally irrelevant.
"Murders have increased over 2019 by at least 50 percent in more than a dozen cities, according to the latest available data from local law enforcement agencies."
New study by
@PizaEric
&
@ntconnealy
on the effect of a sudden withdrawal of policing in Seattle's CHOP zone.
Both Part I and property crime increased significantly within ~3 weeks in the CHOP zone, the 2-block radius, and the East precinct.
Full text:
In this op-ed, my colleagues and I review the evidence (including our own study published in Criminology & Public Policy) concerning elevated police turnover following the George Floyd protests.
Time flies! Ten years ago today, I applied to the
@UofSC_Crim
PhD program. The first year was definitely the hardest, and I thought about quitting many times. I can't imagine what first- and second-year students are going through right now.
FBI’s attempt to collect data on police use of force may end due to lack of police participation.
What a shame. It sounded like rich data. Too bad no one ever got to see it.
Fatal shootings by police continue to occur as often in 2020 as they have over each of the last 5 years.
But there is a silver lining: fatal shootings of people who were both unarmed & non-threatening (per
@washingtonpost
) *have* declined. From 50 in 2015 to 8 so far in 2020.
New preprint available on
@OSFramework
. A highly touted study published by
@TheLancet
in 2018 claimed police killings of unarmed black persons ↘️ the mental health of black Americans in the general population. We found 93 miscoded cases in their data.
March: Submit manuscript
December: Rejected based on feedback from 1 reviewer who I strongly suspect already reviewed it when it was previously under review at another journal.
So that took 9 months and the paper's no better for it.
Cool, cool, cool.
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Forthcoming research: My colleagues and I provide experimental evidence that citizen demeanor influences police officers' cognitions and emotions *independent of* noncompliance. (1/9)
Our roads are much deadlier now than they were just three years ago - especially for pedestrians.
Two contributing factors: increased speeding and alcohol impairment.
Apparently, many people think U.S. police officers killed 1000+ unarmed Black men in 2019.
That's *at least 37x higher* than the actual number.
Data here:
1/n A recent nationally representative survey commissioned by Skeptic Mag asked respondents to estimate the number of unarmed blacks killed by police in 2019. Overall, 44% of liberals guessed 1,000 or more as compared to 20% of conservatives (this calculation is based on the..
1. They're definitely quitting. That part isn't up for debate.
2. De-policing was not the sole cause of last year's homicide spike, but I do think it was a contributing factor.
3. BIG swing and miss by Balko on *why* de-policing happened.
“Cops across the country are quitting or allowing murders to happen because they think Chauvin was unfairly punished for doing the morally right thing” is an odd defense of policing. It’s an even odder argument that we should vastly expand it.
Okay friends, you convinced me. I'm posting slides for my undergrad "Police & Society" course this spring. I hope this will be helpful for my students as well as early career academics who are prepping similar courses for the first time.
#AcademicTwitter