Julie M. Kafka, Alice M. Ellyson, N. Jeanie Santaularia, Avanti Adhia, Alberto Ortega, Sandra Shanahan, Ali Rowhani‐Rahbar, Deirdre Bowen
{"title":"Disparities in court orders to relinquish firearms in civil domestic violence protection orders","authors":"Julie M. Kafka, Alice M. Ellyson, N. Jeanie Santaularia, Avanti Adhia, Alberto Ortega, Sandra Shanahan, Ali Rowhani‐Rahbar, Deirdre Bowen","doi":"10.1111/1745-9133.12693","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12693","url":null,"abstract":"Research summaryTo address firearm‐related harms in the context of domestic violence (DV), federal law prohibits firearm purchase or possession for respondents in qualifying civil domestic violence protection order (DVPO) cases. Washington state further authorizes courts to order a DVPO respondent (i.e., the person who perpetrated DV) to relinquish firearms in their possession while a DVPO is in effect. Despite statutory guidelines about when to order firearm relinquishment, judicial biases or other structural factors may influence which DVPO cases include firearm relinquishment. Historically, U.S. laws and institutions have privileged White men with firearm access over minoritized individuals, but little is known about whether racial disparities exist in DVPO firearm relinquishment orders. We investigated racialized disparities in DVPO firearm relinquishment orders using a sample of 6290 granted DVPO cases from King County, Washington (2014–2020). Using logistic regression analyses, we found that White respondents had 30–50% times lower odds of being ordered to relinquish firearms compared with respondents who were Black (aOR: 0.7, 95% CI: 0.6, 0.9) or Latine (aOR: 0.5, 95% CI: 0.4, 0.7). Disparities were attenuated in situations when it was statutorily mandatory for the DVPO to include a firearm relinquishment order, compared with situations when the order was discretionary, although disparities remained.Policy implicationsCourts may privilege and protect firearm rights for White DVPO respondents compared with respondents who were Black or Latine. Considering that people who perpetrate DV pose a substantial risk for enacting violence in the home and in the community, DVPO firearm relinquishment should be ordered equitably and thoroughly, regardless of respondent race or ethnicity. Removing judicial discretion may improve the rate at which firearm relinquishment is ordered and mitigate disparities in firearm relinquishment based on respondent race or ethnicity, however, statutory mandates alone are not sufficient to address these problems.","PeriodicalId":47902,"journal":{"name":"Criminology & Public Policy","volume":"20 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.6,"publicationDate":"2025-01-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143072431","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Implementation science (IS)—A game changer for criminology and criminal justice","authors":"Faye S. Taxman","doi":"10.1111/1745-9133.12694","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12694","url":null,"abstract":"Research summaryImplementation science (IS) is an emerging field that is infrequently used in criminology and criminal justice. IS offers criminology and criminal justice new methods to describe and measure innovations, and new and rigorous research designs that include measuring the implementation of innovations, examining implementation or change strategies, and pursuing a myriad of implementation outcomes. Most important is that the emphasis is on the organizations and/or systems themselves, instead of a focus on individuals. A science of implementation will help to advance reform efforts in justice/legal organizations, whether the reforms are at the policy or practice level. Criminologists’ use of IS methods and techniques should enlarge our knowledge about “what works” to include answers to contextual questions regarding “what works under what circumstances” or “how does it works.” Further, IS can help identify the processes needed to ensure reform efforts are successful and to build capacity for long‐term change.Policy implicationsIS is a field that is growing in importance in medicine and health‐related disciplines and is relevant to criminology/criminal justice. Receptivity to reforming police, judicial, prosecutorial, institutional corrections, and community corrections organizations is typically met with a bit of a cold shoulder, often because researchers do not understand or address the operational issues that affect reform. Of particular importance is understanding which change procedures are useful for what types of reforms—an understudied and underappreciated feature of the implementation conundrum. Policy makers and practitioners will benefit from more information on effective change procedures. IS can be used to understand strategies to define innovations, to master change processes, to study implementation, and to expand outcomes to include organizational and system measures to benefit all stakeholders.","PeriodicalId":47902,"journal":{"name":"Criminology & Public Policy","volume":"60 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.6,"publicationDate":"2025-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143072013","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Understanding what violent street crime, globalization, and ice cream have in common","authors":"Gary LaFree","doi":"10.1111/1745-9133.12696","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12696","url":null,"abstract":"Research SummaryIn recent years, nutrition researchers have found that ice cream may have as many health benefits as low‐fat milk or yoghurt for those with diabetes or at risk of diabetes. Nonetheless, they have resisted reporting this finding to the media, the public, or other researchers. This observation got me thinking about how preconceived assumptions and biases affect social science in general and criminology in particular, are affected by the preconceived assumptions and biases of those who produce them. In this essay, I argue that the production of criminology is a cultural enterprise that reflects the attitudes and values of those who produce it. In my address for the Stockholm Prize, I summarize the main thesis of my <jats:italic>Losing Legitimacy</jats:italic> book and then discuss two recent projects that were influenced by the idea that strong social institutions reduce criminal behavior. The first examines the impact of the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore in 2015 on crime and arrest rates. The second examines the impact of globalization on national homicide rates. In both cases, the results were unexpected.Policy ImplicationsAs scientists, it is critical that we evaluate research based on its theoretical soundness and methodological sophistication rather than whether it fits a currently hot topic or politically popular perspective. Science progresses by the constant process of evaluating theoretical propositions with empirical data—regardless of where those data lead us. Openness about crime and reactions to crime is no less important than honesty about the positive benefits of ice‐cream consumption.","PeriodicalId":47902,"journal":{"name":"Criminology & Public Policy","volume":"54 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.6,"publicationDate":"2025-01-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143056202","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Identifying high‐risk firearms dealers: A machine learning study of rapidly diverted firearm sales in California","authors":"Hannah S. Laqueur, Colette Smirniotis","doi":"10.1111/1745-9133.12692","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12692","url":null,"abstract":"Research SummaryUsing firearm transaction and crime gun recovery records from California (2010–2021), we employ machine learning to identify dealers who sold largest number and highest fraction of guns recovered in crimes within 1 year of sale. This short “time‐to‐crime” (TTC) is a well‐established indicator of potential illegal activity by dealers or traffickers. We developed two primary prediction models: the first classifies dealer‐years in the top 5% of 1‐year crime gun sales volume (prediction model 1), the second identifies dealer‐years in the top 5% based on the fraction of sales recovered within a year (prediction model 2). Both models demonstrated strong discriminative performance, with areas under the receiver operating curve (AUCs) of 0.95 and 0.86, respectively, and areas under the precision‐recall curve (AUC–PRs) of 0.72 and 0.43. By comparison, a random classifier would be expected to achieve an AUC of 0.50 and an AUC‐PR of 0.05. Prediction model 1 was particularly effective at identifying the highest risk dealers: Those with predictions exceeding 0.90 consistently ranked in the top 5% across multiple years, averaging 33 1‐year crime gun sales annually. The machine learning models generally outperformed simpler regression and rule‐based approaches, underscoring the value of data‐adaptive methods for prediction. Key predictors included prior‐year crime gun sales, the average age of purchasers, the proportion of “cheap” handgun sales, and the local gun robbery and assault rate.Policy ImplicationsFirearms dealers may engage in behaviors that facilitate the diversion of guns to criminal markets. Combining detailed transaction and recovery records with machine learning could help efficiently identify high‐risk retailers for targeted enforcement to disrupt the flow of firearms to gun offenders. Future research is needed to determine whether a high number of short TTC sales as compared to a high fraction is a more reliable predictor of law evasion.","PeriodicalId":47902,"journal":{"name":"Criminology & Public Policy","volume":"6 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.6,"publicationDate":"2025-01-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143020396","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The more things change, the more they stay the same: A multi‐wave national assessment of police academy training curricula","authors":"John J. Sloan, Eugene A. Paoline, Matt R. Nobles","doi":"10.1111/1745-9133.12691","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12691","url":null,"abstract":"Research SummaryUsing secondary data from a census of 421 police academies nationwide continuously operating between 2002 and 2018, we assessed continuity and change in core areas of basic law enforcement training (BLET) of new police hires. Despite decades of concerns expressed by national‐level commissions, scholars, and practitioners about the substance of police academy basic training, ours is the first study since the 1980s that examines the content of basic training at multiple police academies during an extended period that included two eras of policing: community oriented and evidence based. Results showed continuity throughout time in total required hours of BLET, including required hours of core curriculum training, and a disproportionate distribution of total training hours allotted to areas central to the crime fighter persona of the early 20th century professional era.Policy ImplicationsThis assessment revealed strong empirical evidence of long‐term resistance to change in police basic training based on continuing overemphasis of traditional aspects of basic training (e.g., use of lethal weapons) over other parts (e.g., community‐oriented policing). Our results, combined with recent qualitative analyses of police basic training revealing a primary “danger imperative” message broadcast to trainees by instructors along with more subtle racist and sexist messages about “bad guys” wanting to kill cops, reveal that decades of efforts to get the occupation to change what new police officers learn during basic training is apparently the equivalent of what Dorothy Guyot once termed “bending granite”—an effort doomed to fail. To weaken the granite, police practitioners and leaders involved with training must take steps toward a complete and comprehensive reorientation of police recruitment and basic training that stresses the importance of new hires acquiring a toolkit that has a guardian‐based foundation and emphasis but allows for the rare instances when officers need to use warrior tools.","PeriodicalId":47902,"journal":{"name":"Criminology & Public Policy","volume":"24 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.6,"publicationDate":"2025-01-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142986084","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Responding to nonemergency calls for service via video: A randomized controlled trial","authors":"Stewart Gates, Barak Ariel, Noy Assaraf","doi":"10.1111/1745-9133.12690","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12690","url":null,"abstract":"Research summaryWe tested the effectiveness of virtual response in policing as an alternative to the traditional physical presence of officers to nonemergency calls for service. We randomly assigned 1059 eligible calls to either virtual or in‐person responses. We estimated the results in terms of waiting time, criminal justice outcomes, cost efficiency, and victim satisfaction based on a representative sample of telephone interviews. We found significant improvements across all measures when using a virtual response, including reduced victim waiting times, greater odds of arrest and charges, and enhanced perceptions of procedural justice, satisfaction, trust, and confidence in the police service. We found no adverse effects on victims due to the lack of physical presence.Research implicationsThese findings suggest that, as with e‐health services, law enforcement can benefit from a cost–beneficial virtual response to nonemergency calls for service. We encourage its consideration as a mass deployment option in policing, as well as a basis for future experimental replications.","PeriodicalId":47902,"journal":{"name":"Criminology & Public Policy","volume":"18 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.6,"publicationDate":"2024-11-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142673239","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Bail reform and pretrial release: Examining the implementation of In re Humphrey","authors":"Johanna Lacoe, Alissa Skog, Mia Bird","doi":"10.1111/1745-9133.12688","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1745-9133.12688","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Research Summary</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Pretrial reform is driving criminal justice policy debates across the nation. The <i>In re Humphrey</i> decision required the San Francisco County criminal court to set bail levels based on defendant ability to pay rather than the county bail schedule. Under this new policy, the rate of pretrial detention fell by 11%. We find defendants released pretrial were less likely to be convicted (a decline of 3 percentage points) in the post-<i>Humphrey</i> period. This decline in conviction rates was driven primarily by a reduction in the likelihood of plea bargaining. These case outcome results are robust to an alternative strategy using propensity score matching and a difference-in-difference estimator to estimate effects for those most likely to be affected by the policy change. There was no consistent, statistically significant change in subsequent arrests or convictions post-<i>Humphrey</i> across the estimation strategies.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Policy Implications</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Although the <i>Humphrey</i> decision originally applied only to San Francisco, a state supreme court decision in March 2021 extended the ruling to courts throughout California. The results also have implications for other states engaged in bail reform. These findings suggest that requiring bail to be set at affordable levels increases pretrial releases overall, specifically releases to pretrial supervision programs, with improvements in case outcomes and no apparent increase in subsequent criminal justice system contact. Counties or states without robust pretrial service options may not experience the same change in releases or other outcomes. Further, jurisdictions that detain people booked on lower level offenses at higher rates than San Francisco may experience a greater response to a policy change like <i>Humphrey</i>.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":47902,"journal":{"name":"Criminology & Public Policy","volume":"24 1","pages":"123-148"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2024-11-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1745-9133.12688","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142598022","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Ezra G. Goldstein, Sarah A. Font, Reeve S. Kennedy, Christian M. Connell, Allison E. Kurpiel
{"title":"Do foster youth face harsher juvenile justice outcomes? Reinvestigating child welfare bias in juvenile justice processing","authors":"Ezra G. Goldstein, Sarah A. Font, Reeve S. Kennedy, Christian M. Connell, Allison E. Kurpiel","doi":"10.1111/1745-9133.12689","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12689","url":null,"abstract":"Research summaryFor decades, child welfare scholars and policy makers have been concerned with the strong association between foster care and juvenile justice involvement. Foster care placement may lead to differences in justice system outcomes if youth in foster care face “processing bias”—differentially harsh treatment by agents of the juvenile court. Previous research found that youth in foster care at the time of juvenile justice contact were treated more harshly by the court, resulting in higher rates of punitive case outcomes. We revisit the question of processing bias using detailed administrative data on more than 10,000 adolescents in Pennsylvania in 2015–2019 and a selection‐on‐observables design. We find no evidence of processing bias against youth in foster care. Compared to observationally equivalent cases, those that involve youth in foster care do not experience more punitive outcomes. If anything, our estimates suggest the opposite—youth in foster care are less likely to have a charge adjudicated, be placed under court‐ordered supervision, or enter into juvenile detention. The precision of our estimates and bounding exercises allow us to rule out even modest evidence of punitive processing bias.Policy implicationsThis paper highlights the importance of revisiting the evidence of processing bias within juvenile justice and child welfare agencies. Given the decentralized and continuously evolving nature of these systems, local jurisdictions should investigate their own case outcomes and contexts before implementing reforms to address bias. Yet, many lack the resources for such research and federal support is essential to enhance local data analysis capabilities, promoting more tailored and effective policy reforms. Initiatives that aim to integrate data from multiple systems can better understand and address the needs of overlapping populations, ultimately improving the quality of services and outcomes.","PeriodicalId":47902,"journal":{"name":"Criminology & Public Policy","volume":"27 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.6,"publicationDate":"2024-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142563260","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Theodore S. Lentz, Matt Vogel, Brenda Mathias, Alessandra Early, Kimberly Rey, Tobeya Ibitayo, Matifadza Hlatshwayo Davis
{"title":"Short-term evaluation of Cure Violence St. Louis: Challenges, triumphs, and lessons learned","authors":"Theodore S. Lentz, Matt Vogel, Brenda Mathias, Alessandra Early, Kimberly Rey, Tobeya Ibitayo, Matifadza Hlatshwayo Davis","doi":"10.1111/1745-9133.12687","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1745-9133.12687","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Research Summary</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Firearm violence continues to be a leading cause of death in the United States. As alternatives to law enforcement intervention, community-based violence prevention programs, such as Cure Violence, have become increasingly popular across U.S. cities. This article documents the results of a multiyear, mixed-methods, quasi-experimental study of the implementation and impact of Cure Violence in St. Louis, Missouri, from 2020 to 2023. We analyzed data from semistructured interviews, a two-wave community survey, and police records of neighborhood violence, finding limited evidence of program effectiveness. Although some interview participants stated that the program had a positive impact, we observed no change in community norms/perceptions of violence, and our analysis of police data suggests that program implementation was associated with declining violence in only one of the three intervention sites.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Policy Implications</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <p>This article highlights challenges of implementing and evaluating community-based violence prevention. More work is needed to unpack the mechanisms responsible for turning program activities into measurable impacts in both the short and long term. Implications for planning and evaluating community-based violence prevention programs are discussed.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":47902,"journal":{"name":"Criminology & Public Policy","volume":"23 4","pages":"981-1017"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2024-10-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142448203","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Situational crime prevention as a harm mitigation policy for active shooter incidents","authors":"Emily A. Greene-Colozzi, Joshua D. Freilich","doi":"10.1111/1745-9133.12686","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1745-9133.12686","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Research summary</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Situational crime prevention (SCP) is an environmental crime control perspective with enormous practical and policy relevance due to its practitioner-friendly theoretical approach. This study examines whether SCP interventions reduce incident casualty outcomes in active shooter incidents. We used an inductive, open-source data set of 555 active shooter and mass public shooting sites to study the applicability of SCP to active shooter and mass public violence. Our findings suggest a harm mitigation role for SCP: active shooter sites with stronger holistic SCP had fewer casualties. We assessed perpetrator motivation to test displacement, a core critique of SCP, and found that the harm mitigation potential of SCP persists even in the presence of a highly motivated offender.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Policy summary</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <p>SCP could be a practical and effective method to decrease casualties in the event of an active shooting, which is a highly motivated crime type that is difficult to predict and prevent. Public locations may select a range of appropriate SCP techniques based on individual resources and needs. The totality and interactions of these techniques may contribute to public safety in general, with diffuse benefits. This policy solution is highly oriented toward practice and real-life application, and may be used to supplement existing preventative measures like threat assessment and gun legislation.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":47902,"journal":{"name":"Criminology & Public Policy","volume":"23 4","pages":"947-979"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2024-10-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1745-9133.12686","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142440194","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}