I. INTRODUCTION The killing of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, by Darren Wilson, a whit... more I. INTRODUCTION The killing of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, by Darren Wilson, a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, sparked widespread protests in the St. Louis area and across the nation. (1) Protests and civil unrest resumed after a St. Louis County grand jury declined to indict the police officer. (2) Protesters and commentators raised several issues related to the Ferguson incident and police use of deadly force. This Article addresses four of those issues: (1) Why Ferguson? (2) Did the Ferguson killing and ensuing civil unrest increase crime rates in St. Louis? (3) What is known about police use of deadly force? (4) What additional information is needed to understand and respond effectively to police use of deadly force? These are certainly not the only issues provoked by the Ferguson events, but they have both research and policy significance, and they have also been raised in response to other controversial police use-of-force incidents in Cleveland, New ...
Skyrocketing violent crime rates obsessed Americans for decades. Crime rates have now been droppi... more Skyrocketing violent crime rates obsessed Americans for decades. Crime rates have now been dropping for 10 years. What has happened, and how can we learn from it?
Although illicit drug activity occurs within local communities, past quantitative research on dru... more Although illicit drug activity occurs within local communities, past quantitative research on drug markets and violent crime in the United States has been conducted mainly at the city level. The authors use neighborhood-level data from the city of Miami to test hypotheses regarding the effect of drug activity and traditional indicators of social disorganization on rates of aggravated assault and robbery. The results show that drug activity has robust effects on violent crime that are independent of other disorganization indicators. The authors also find that drug activity is concentrated in neighborhoods with low rates of immigration, less linguistic isolation and ethnic heterogeneity, and where nondrug accidental deaths are prevalent. The authors find no independent effect of neighborhood racial composition on drug activity or violent crime. The results suggest that future neighborhood-level research on social disorganization and violent crime should devote explicit attention to th...
In recent years, Hispanic immigration to the United States has become a politically charged publi... more In recent years, Hispanic immigration to the United States has become a politically charged public issue, with significant consequences for immigration policies, communities, individual immigrants, and the U.S. residents who resemble them in language, customs, and appearance. We examine one possible collateral consequence of the fear and tension surrounding recent immigration trends, anti-Hispanic hate crime. Drawing on traditional theories of intergroup conflict—and particularly minority threat theory—we hypothesize that recent changes in Hispanic immigration are positively related to hate crimes targeting Hispanics. We find support for this hypothesis in a multivariate state-level panel analysis of anti-Hispanic hate crime from 2000 to 2004. Other predictions, however, are not supported. We conclude that the impact of immigration patterns on hate crime is an important area for continued criminological inquiry and that the notion of cultural threat should receive greater attention ...
Robert Putnam comprehensively analyzes the multidimensional nature of social capital and makes a ... more Robert Putnam comprehensively analyzes the multidimensional nature of social capital and makes a persuasive argument for its relevance to various community social problems, including violent crime. However, systematic empirical evaluations of the links between the multiple dimensions of social capital and violence are limited by the lack of adequate measures. Using data from the Social Capital Benchmark Survey, the authors model the relationships between several dimensions of social capital and homicide rates for 40 U.S. geographic areas. Their findings show that many forms of social capital highlighted in the literature as having beneficial consequences for communities are not related to homicide rates. Two dimensions of social capital, social trust and social activism, do exhibit significant associations with homicide rates, net of other influences. However, in the latter case, the relationship is positive, and in both cases, simultaneous equation models suggest that these dimensi...
Policies and services designed to help victims of domestic violence appear to have two possible a... more Policies and services designed to help victims of domestic violence appear to have two possible and opposing effects: either they decrease the abuse and risk of homicide, or they have the unintended consequence of increasing them. Some interventions that reduce contact between intimate partners in violent relationships also reduce opportunities for further abuse and potential homicide attempts. 1 But certain interventions designed to help victims gain access to helpful resources may actually increase the risk of homicide—they ...
Violence Against Women and Family Violence: Developments in Research, Practice, and Policy
This project was supported under award 97–WT–VX–0004 from the National Institute of Justice, Offi... more This project was supported under award 97–WT–VX–0004 from the National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, US Department of Justice. Findings and conclusions of the research reported here are those of the authors and do not reflect the official position or policies of the US Department of Justice.
I. INTRODUCTION The killing of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, by Darren Wilson, a whit... more I. INTRODUCTION The killing of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, by Darren Wilson, a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, sparked widespread protests in the St. Louis area and across the nation. (1) Protests and civil unrest resumed after a St. Louis County grand jury declined to indict the police officer. (2) Protesters and commentators raised several issues related to the Ferguson incident and police use of deadly force. This Article addresses four of those issues: (1) Why Ferguson? (2) Did the Ferguson killing and ensuing civil unrest increase crime rates in St. Louis? (3) What is known about police use of deadly force? (4) What additional information is needed to understand and respond effectively to police use of deadly force? These are certainly not the only issues provoked by the Ferguson events, but they have both research and policy significance, and they have also been raised in response to other controversial police use-of-force incidents in Cleveland, New ...
Skyrocketing violent crime rates obsessed Americans for decades. Crime rates have now been droppi... more Skyrocketing violent crime rates obsessed Americans for decades. Crime rates have now been dropping for 10 years. What has happened, and how can we learn from it?
Although illicit drug activity occurs within local communities, past quantitative research on dru... more Although illicit drug activity occurs within local communities, past quantitative research on drug markets and violent crime in the United States has been conducted mainly at the city level. The authors use neighborhood-level data from the city of Miami to test hypotheses regarding the effect of drug activity and traditional indicators of social disorganization on rates of aggravated assault and robbery. The results show that drug activity has robust effects on violent crime that are independent of other disorganization indicators. The authors also find that drug activity is concentrated in neighborhoods with low rates of immigration, less linguistic isolation and ethnic heterogeneity, and where nondrug accidental deaths are prevalent. The authors find no independent effect of neighborhood racial composition on drug activity or violent crime. The results suggest that future neighborhood-level research on social disorganization and violent crime should devote explicit attention to th...
In recent years, Hispanic immigration to the United States has become a politically charged publi... more In recent years, Hispanic immigration to the United States has become a politically charged public issue, with significant consequences for immigration policies, communities, individual immigrants, and the U.S. residents who resemble them in language, customs, and appearance. We examine one possible collateral consequence of the fear and tension surrounding recent immigration trends, anti-Hispanic hate crime. Drawing on traditional theories of intergroup conflict—and particularly minority threat theory—we hypothesize that recent changes in Hispanic immigration are positively related to hate crimes targeting Hispanics. We find support for this hypothesis in a multivariate state-level panel analysis of anti-Hispanic hate crime from 2000 to 2004. Other predictions, however, are not supported. We conclude that the impact of immigration patterns on hate crime is an important area for continued criminological inquiry and that the notion of cultural threat should receive greater attention ...
Robert Putnam comprehensively analyzes the multidimensional nature of social capital and makes a ... more Robert Putnam comprehensively analyzes the multidimensional nature of social capital and makes a persuasive argument for its relevance to various community social problems, including violent crime. However, systematic empirical evaluations of the links between the multiple dimensions of social capital and violence are limited by the lack of adequate measures. Using data from the Social Capital Benchmark Survey, the authors model the relationships between several dimensions of social capital and homicide rates for 40 U.S. geographic areas. Their findings show that many forms of social capital highlighted in the literature as having beneficial consequences for communities are not related to homicide rates. Two dimensions of social capital, social trust and social activism, do exhibit significant associations with homicide rates, net of other influences. However, in the latter case, the relationship is positive, and in both cases, simultaneous equation models suggest that these dimensi...
Policies and services designed to help victims of domestic violence appear to have two possible a... more Policies and services designed to help victims of domestic violence appear to have two possible and opposing effects: either they decrease the abuse and risk of homicide, or they have the unintended consequence of increasing them. Some interventions that reduce contact between intimate partners in violent relationships also reduce opportunities for further abuse and potential homicide attempts. 1 But certain interventions designed to help victims gain access to helpful resources may actually increase the risk of homicide—they ...
Violence Against Women and Family Violence: Developments in Research, Practice, and Policy
This project was supported under award 97–WT–VX–0004 from the National Institute of Justice, Offi... more This project was supported under award 97–WT–VX–0004 from the National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, US Department of Justice. Findings and conclusions of the research reported here are those of the authors and do not reflect the official position or policies of the US Department of Justice.
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Papers by Richard Rosenfeld