Criminology

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.

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.

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%.

Marie Gottschalk of the School of Arts & Sciences says that prison reforms to reduce the number of people incarcerated have been minimal.

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.

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.

Data from the Quattrone Center at Penn Carey Law suggests that COVID-19 has caused crime in the U.S. to drop across the nation’s largest cities.

A study by researchers from Penn and Columbia found that the restoration of blighted land resulted in a 58% reduction in people’s fear of going outside due to violence and a 76% increase in the use of outdoor spaces.

Two studies by the Urban Health Lab at Penn found that gun violence dropped significantly in neighborhoods where vacant parcels were turned into regularly maintained green spaces.

In a 2021 essay, Aaron Chalfin and John MacDonald of the School of Arts & Sciences argued that a number of changing factors made it difficult to isolate the precise combination of ingredients behind the COVID pandemic’s surge in violence.