Eleven states and the District of Columbia have legalized marijuana. A new study funded by a grant from the National Institute of Justice sought to determine the effect of this legal change on crimes rates. The study, which looked at legalization and sales of recreational cannabis in Colorado and Washington, found minimal to no effect […]
Prior research has shown that immigrants have lower rates of offending, arrest, and incarceration than nonimmigrants. However, that work hasn’t examined whether this holds true for recidivism. A new study compared recidivism rates of foreign-born and native-born individuals formerly incarcerated for felonies and released from prisons in Florida. It found that immigrants are significantly less […]
Police are increasingly called on to combat crimes related to sex and labor trafficking. A new study sought to determine how the victims of these crimes are served by police. Based on researchers’ review of human trafficking investigations and interviews with police and service providers in three communities in Northeast, West, and South United States, […]
About 3.5 million students are suspended each year, and school punishment has been tied to a variety of negative outcomes. A new study took a longitudinal look at how school suspensions are related to offending behaviors that include assault, stealing, and selling drugs. It found that rather than decreasing subsequent offending, school suspensions increase this […]
In the United States, heightened hostility toward Hispanic immigrants is common in contemporary public discourse, as are fears about Hispanic immigrants and crime. We know that the treatment of Hispanic immigrants differs depending on whether they come to areas of the United States that have historically welcomed Hispanic immigrants or to new destinations that have […]
Since the 1980s, federal and local governments have increasingly used public money to hire private firms to house and manage people who are incarcerated. In the last few years, the number of incarcerated individuals held in privately operated institutions has risen sharply. A new study sought to determine the points at which individuals who encounter […]
Researchers have sought to identify the factors that promote or contribute to criminal persistence—that is, the likelihood that offenders will continue to offend. A new longitudinal study looked at the impact on criminal persistence of head injuries, which have been linked to increased levels of offending, among adolescents and early adults. It found that changes […]
Police use of body-worn cameras is growing rapidly in the United States. New research that looked at 70 studies of body-worn cameras concludes that while officers and citizens generally support using the cameras, the devices may not have had significant or consistent effects on most measures of behavior by officers or citizens, or on citizens’ […]
Ten states and the District of Columbia now allow the sale, possession, and use of marijuana for recreational purposes, and 33 states and the District of Columbia allow medical marijuana. Critics argue that marijuana dispensaries are magnets for crime. A new study found an association between marijuana dispensaries and increases in rates of crime and […]
Research has told us that school disciplinary practices lead to juvenile justice interventions, and that both school exclusion and juvenile justice intervention lead to adversities like drug use in adolescence and adulthood. Yet it’s unclear which form of intervention—being suspended and expelled from school or being arrested by police—is more likely to lead youth to […]