Criminology | Penn Today

Illustration of a Black hand with shackle around the wrist and paper in the palm folded like a crane.

The Quattrone Center: Less argument, more truth-seeking

The Quattrone Center for the Fair Administration of Justice is pioneering a systemic, data-driven approach to criminal justice reform. Its executive director, John Hollway, started with the idea that the law should function more like science.

GOP portrayal of urban mayhem doesn’t always match reality

David Abrams of the Law School warned that focusing on crime statistics over short periods of time, such as week-to-week rates, can be misleading. “If you look at a longer time horizon over 10 years, 20 years, 30 years. I mean, crime is down immensely from what it was in the ‘80s and ‘90s,” he said.

Trying to make sense of Atlanta crime in the coronavirus era

David Abrams of the Wharton School said crime reports and arrests fell significantly in the spring amid stay-at-home orders. “If you are a criminal, you have fewer targets,” he said.

'A national disgrace': Holes in DNA databases leave crimes unsolved for decades

PIK Professor Dorothy Roberts commented on the use of DNA in surveillance and policing. “Because of the huge disparities and injustices in the way in which criminal laws are enforced, like rampant racial profiling by police, collecting DNA is a racist practice,” she said. “It embeds within it the racist practices for arresting people and charging them with crimes.”

In the wake of COVID-19 lockdowns, a troubling surge in homicides

A database compiled by David Abrams of the Law School used mobile phone records to measure the relationship between the rise of social distancing and the decline of arrests once the pandemic began.

Crime has declined overall during the pandemic, but shootings and killings are up

David Abrams of the Law School and Wharton School spoke about how crime rates have shifted amid the pandemic. "People have reacted to the pandemic in all sorts of ways in decreasing economic activity," he said. "They stopped going to work, they stopped driving their car. They stopped walking around the city, and crime also stopped."

Police car on a rainy Philadelphia street.

Law School hosts ‘Structural Frustrations: Challenges to Implementing Change’

The second virtual event in its summer series, “A Path for Change: Policing in America” is part of a yearlong colloquium titled “Achieving Racial Justice.”

African American person in a crowd at a demonstration confronts a line of state police with riot gear.

Police violence, structural racism, and the science of reform

Co-sponsored by LDI and the Penn Injury Science Center, a virtual seminar on Policing, Race and Health: Prospects for Reform kicks off what will be a continuing series of conversations on the topic over the next year.

Major U.S. cities, gripped with crisis, now face spike in deadly shootings, including of children

Richard Berk of the School of Arts & Sciences commented on an uptick in gun violence in the U.S. "Every homicide is a tragedy," he said. "It particularly is a tragedy when you see these kids get shot."

Historic image of police storming a storefront in 1967 during a riot in Detroit.

Q&A

What the 1968 Kerner Commission can teach us

Criminologist and statistician Richard Berk, who worked on the report as a graduate student, explains the systemic racism and poverty found to underlie violent unrest in the 1960s and where COVID-19 and the economy fit today.

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