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Criminology
How AI tools can help assess verbal eyewitness statements
Quattrone Center Academic Director Paul Heaton’s new paper explores how he and his co-authors trained a large language model to parse eyewitness confidence statements.
How Penn researchers are helping address group violence in Baltimore
The Crime and Justice Policy Lab has seen encouraging results from its work implementing a Group Violence Reduction Strategy in part of the city.
‘False positive’ field drug tests lead to wrongful convictions
A new Quattrone Center report shows that the use of presumptive field tests in drug arrests is one of the largest known contributing factors to wrongful arrests and convictions.
Videotaping interrogations in Pennsylvania
The Quattrone Center has released “Videotaping Interrogations in Pennsylvania,” the first study to review Pennsylvania interrogation practices.
Abandoned house repairs reduced nearby gun violence
Installing working windows and doors, cleaning trash, and weeding at abandoned houses led to safety improvements and should be considered in efforts to create healthy communities, according to researchers from University of Pennsylvania and Columbia.
Despite lower crime rates in 2020, risk of victimization grew
Research out of Penn and the Naval Postgraduate School found that early in the pandemic the possibility of getting robbed or assaulted in a public place in the U.S. jumped by 15% to 30%, a rate that has stayed elevated since.
Crime and the scientific method
The multidisciplinary faculty in the Department of Criminology harness diverse methodologies to improve public safety and inform policy and planning.
Well water, lead, and the link to juvenile delinquency
Research from Penn and other universities found that, compared to children with municipal water, those relying on private wells in the U.S. had a 21% higher risk of being reported for any delinquency and a 38% increased risk of being reported for serious delinquency after age 14.
Diversion programs reduce criminal justice system footprint
Research from Penn criminologists and the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office found that such programs increase expungement rates and lower reconviction rates, leading to a net-narrowing effect overall.
Who’s at greatest risk to encounter the criminal legal system in the U.S.?
New work from Penn, Princeton, and Washington University in St. Louis finds that for young people of color, contact with the system begins early and is incredibly widespread.
In the News
Too many Philly police are no-shows in court, derailing cases and undermining our justice system
Research by Sandra Mayson of Penn Carey Law, Aurelie Ouss of the School of Arts & Sciences, and doctoral candidate Linsday Graef finds that Philadelphia police officers failed to appear in 31% of cases for which they were subpoenaed between 2010 and 2020.
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Do safe injection sites increase crime rates? What a study our of Brown University found
A study in collaboration with Aaron Chalfin of the School of Arts & Sciences indicates that overdose prevention centers do not lead to increased neighborhood crime rates.
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Philadelphians hope a cleaner city will reduce gun violence. Will Oh or Parker make it a reality?
A $3 million blight reduction project in Philadelphia is informed by Penn research showing that cleaning up trash and revitalizing vacant lots can reduce gun violence rates by as much as 29%.
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There is an invisible Puerto Rican community growing in PA’s prisons
Marie Gottschalk of the School of Arts & Sciences says that prison reforms to reduce the number of people incarcerated have been minimal.
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Gregg Bigda is the poster boy of police brutality in Springfield. But the city can’t—or won’t—fire him
A 2021 Penn analysis of all complaints across the Chicago Police Department revealed that on average, officers generated 1.5 total complaints and 0.2 use of force complaints in a five-year period.
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When a police shooting really is justified, what do we do with our pain then?
Richard Berk of the School of Arts & Sciences says that the police shooting of Estiben Alegria-Hurtado in Elizabeth, New Jersey, is a case where 20-20 hindsight can be fairly myopic.
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