Because It Can Give Insight on how to Improve School Safety and Prevent Mass Shootings

As a new school year begins, it is understandable that students, parents, teachers and the community at large experience both excitement and apprehension. Excitement about a new year of in-person learning, reconnecting with old friends and making new ones, but apprehension about the safety of the school environment. The possibility of school violence occupies the minds of many. While the risk of mass shootings in schools remains exceedingly low, it is essential that we draw on the best data and research available to prevent such events and mitigate all manner of threats to school and student safety.

As the directors of two federal agencies tasked with collecting crime and justice data and advancing scientific research to enhance public safety and the administration of justice, we want to highlight some of what we know about school safety and mass shootings.

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Because Education and Research are Essential for Solving Crime and Justice Problems

Police agencies across America are in the hot seat. Frontline officers’ every move is scrutinized, and anything that resembles excessive force is recorded and shared on social media. Extreme acts of police violence, including wrongful shootings, garner even more attention. They make for viral videos and shocking news headlines. They spur community groups and politicians into action. In response to real and perceived police abuses, a movement is now afoot to “defund” the police. It sounds serious, implying that money should be stripped from policing budgets as punishment for law enforcement misdeeds. Proposals to defund the police, however, are much more complex and nuanced than these discussions typically let on. However, many people misunderstand what defunding entails, and relatively little research exists on which supporters can base their proposals—and in some cases, the research is ignored altogether. This is where criminal justice and criminological researchers and educators come in.

What does it mean to “defund” the police? It is not punishment. Rather, it is the reallocation or redirection of funding away from police departments to other government agencies—and possibly beyond. Defunding is not about abolishing policing, nor is it about starting over. Its concern, instead, is with the efficient allocation of public resources. It asks several questions in this regard. Should police respond to all types of 911 calls? Could they be more effective in apprehending lawbreakers if they weren’t tied up with trivial, noncriminal incidents? If money is taken from policing, where can and should it go? Other government agencies? Social service providers? Years of research shows no strong connection between police funding and crime, so perhaps it is time to rethink how the money is spent. That is the essence of the defunding movement. We might go so far as to say the term “defunding” undermines the potential of an otherwise interesting set of ideas. Defunding will struggle to get off the ground if people fail to understand what it is. Education is essential.

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Because It Can Teach Police Nonviolence and How to Work with Local Residents

This article originally appeared on January 24, 2020 as “Teach police nonviolence, scholars say, and how to work with local residents” in The Conversation and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Police have a saying, “better to be judged by 12 than carried by six,” acknowledging they might face a jury if they use excessive force, but it’s preferable to being killed in the line of duty. Many police oppose civilian oversight of their departments, which could prevent both criminal charges and death. Yet right now, all over the U.S., the public is judging police for how they act.

Some police officers question the usefulness of training in de-escalation techniques, which have been shown to reduce threats to them and members of the public. Officers often say it’s hard for civilians to understand how difficult it is for them to “keep cool” during chaotic and dangerous moments.

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Because Social Science Can Have an Impact on Public Policy

Why Social Science? Because social science can—and should—have a real impact on public policy at the federal, state, and local levels. More than a decade ago, while serving as President of the Southern Criminal Justice Association, I spoke with Mittie Southerland, who at the time was the Executive Director of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences (ACJS). We lamented that while our members produced the best and most topical peer-reviewed and policy-relevant research in crime and justice, getting legislators, reporters, and policy-makers to take account of it seemed an almost impossible task. How to make it happen?

Today, I chair the Crime & Justice Research Alliance (CJRA), a centralized resource of authoritative experts and scholarly studies created to provide policymakers, practitioners and the public direct access to relevant research on crime and criminal justice issues. Formed in 2015, CJRA is a collaborative partnership between the nation’s two leading criminal justice associations, ACJS and the American Society of Criminology (ASC), which represent more than 5,000 criminal justice scholars, practitioners, and researchers.

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Because It Can Challenge Conventional Wisdom

Social science research provides evidence that helps us understand the drivers of social problems. A lot of times, this evidence is in contrast to the conventional wisdom and may on the face of it seem counterintuitive.  However, evidence from social science research can show why certain policies work and why other policies fail, helping us inform policy and prevent unintended consequences.

An example of this is “ban-the-box” policies, laws that forbid employers from asking whether a job applicant was ever involved with the justice system. The purpose of such policies was to improve hiring rates for individuals with criminal backgrounds and limit discrimination by employers, based on the  theory that the stigma for those involved with the criminal justice system would not be present if employers did not have information about applicants’ criminal histories. The large racial disparities in the criminal justice system lead to further racial disparities in the employment of ex-offenders. Thus, banning the box would have the added benefit of reducing racial disparities in employment. Thirty-one states plus the District of Columbia have passed ban-the-box policies, along with over 150 cities and counties.

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Because Social Science Drives Smart Investments in Public Safety

When I make a new acquaintance and am asked the inevitable question, “What do you do for a living?,” I’m often tempted to fib and reply that I’m a middle school teacher, a real estate agent, or an accountant – professions that most every member of the public knows and understands with little need for additional explanation. Not so when I answer honestly that I’m a criminologist. That response is often met with, “Oh, so you’re a lawyer?” or “You mean like on CSI?” My reply depends on how much time I have – usually not nearly enough!

The short answer is that criminologists are social scientists. The actors on CSI who collect crime scene evidence are playing the role of criminalists, also known as forensic scientists. They answer questions like, “What evidence exists about who was at the crime scene and what transpired there?” Criminologists answer questions like, “How does the collection of DNA at property crime scenes support investigations and case clearance rates?” (The answer might interest you: DNA evidence collection doubles the rate of suspect identification compared to traditional methods.)

Criminology is a social science offshoot of sociology, but it draws its ranks from a diverse array of social science disciplines, from demography to psychology and geography. Yes, there are a few lawyers in our ranks, but while traditional lawyers answer questions like, “What are the elements of the criminal code, and how are they applied at sentencing?” Criminologists answer questions like, “What types of community supervision are effective alternatives to incarceration, and for whom?”

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