Thomas Abt | |
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Born | 1972 (age 51–52) |
Academic background | |
Alma mater | University of Michigan (BA in economics) Georgetown University Law Center (JD) |
Thesis | The Representation of Three-dimensional Space in Mental Images |
Academic work | |
Discipline | Economics,law,criminology |
Website | ccjs |
Thomas Abt (born 1972) [1] is an American author,crime researcher,and former government official specializing in evidence-informed approaches to reducing crime in urban areas. His book,Bleeding Out:The Devastating Consequences of Urban Violence and a Bold New Plan for Peace in the Streets,was published in June 2019 by Basic Books. [2]
Abt grew up in Cambridge,Massachusetts. His father is Clark C. Abt,an MIT-trained engineer and founder of the social-science research firm Abt Associates and his mother,Wendy (née Peter) was educated at Harvard and is a banking and economic-development consultant. [1]
Abt received his bachelor's degree in economics from the University of Michigan and a J.D. degree with honors from Georgetown University Law Center. [3]
Abt favors an approach to crime prevention that emphasizes eliminating violence directly,rather than focusing on its other associations,which include such things as poverty,gangs and drugs,and his 2019 book substantiates this claim with an extensive review of the data. [4]
Abt began his career after graduating law school in 2000 as a prosecutor in the Manhattan district attorney's office for four years, [1] then shifting to litigation as an associate with Paul,Weiss,Rifkind,Wharton &Garrison from 2004 to 2008. In 2008,Abt worked in Des Moines,Iowa on Barack Obama's campaign as director of voter protection.
Abt served as chief of staff to the Office of Justice Programs at the U.S. Department of Justice from 2010 to 2013. While there,he worked with the nation's principal criminal justice grant-making and research agencies to integrate evidence,policy,and practice. Abt also played a lead role in establishing the National Forum on Youth Violence Prevention,a network of federal agencies and local communities working together to reduce youth and gang violence. After that,he moved to the New York's Governor's Office,where he served from 2013 to 2014 as deputy secretary for public safety under Andrew Cuomo,overseeing all criminal justice and homeland security agencies. [3] During his tenure,Abt led the development of New York's GIVE (Gun-Involved Violence Elimination) Initiative,which employs evidence-informed,data-driven approaches to reduce gun violence.
Since January 2020,Abt has been a senior fellow on the Council on Criminal Justice in Washington D.C.,where he directs its Violent Crime Working Group. He also served as director of CCJ's National Commission on COVID-19 and Criminal Justice. Prior to serving on the CCJ,he was a senior research fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government and a senior fellow at Harvard Law School. He is also a member of the Campbell Collaboration Criminal Justice Steering Committee. Abt is a former member of the advisory board of the Police Executive Programme at the University of Cambridge,and he is also a former senior fellow with the IgarapéInstitute in Rio de Janeiro,Brazil.
In November 2022,it was announced that Abt would join the University of Maryland's department of criminology and criminal justice,where he would serve as an associate research professor and founding director of a new venture,the Center for the Study and Practice of Violence Reduction. The Center will synthesize the latest research concerning community gun violence and make it available to policymakers,practitioners,and the public free of charge. The Center will also provide guidance to federal,state,and local leaders on how best to apply anti-violence research in real-world scenarios. [5]
Abt is a nationally recognized researcher and expert on crime. [6] [7] [8] His work has been featured in The Atlantic , The Economist , Foreign Affairs , The New Yorker , The New York Times , The Wall Street Journal ,and on MSNBC,PBS,National Public Radio,among other places. His TED talk on saving lives by stopping violence has been viewed more than 200,000 times. [9] [10]
Violence is the use of physical force to cause harm to people,animals,or property,such as pain,injury,death,damage,or destruction. Some definitions are somewhat broader,such as the World Health Organization's definition of violence as "the intentional use of physical force or power,threatened or actual,against oneself,another person,or against a group or community,which either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury,death,psychological harm,maldevelopment,or deprivation."
John Richard Lott Jr. is an American economist,political commentator,and gun rights advocate. Lott was formerly employed at various academic institutions and at the American Enterprise Institute conservative think tank. He is the former president of the Crime Prevention Research Center,a nonprofit he founded in 2013. He worked in the Office of Justice Programs within the U.S. Department of Justice under the Donald Trump administration from October 2020 to January 2021. Lott holds a Ph.D. in economics from UCLA.
Gary LaFree is a Professor and Chair of the Criminology and Criminal Justice department at the University of Maryland,College Park,the Director of the Maryland Crime Research and Innovation Center (MCRIC) and the Founding Director of the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START). His main areas of expertise are sociology,criminology,race and crime,cross-national comparative research and political violence and terrorism.
Juvenile delinquency,also known as juvenile offending,is the act of participating in unlawful behavior as a minor or individual younger than the statutory age of majority. The term delinquent usually refers to juvenile delinquency,and is also generalised to refer to a young person who behaves an unacceptable way.
Daniel F. Conley is an American attorney and politician who served as the district attorney for Suffolk County,Massachusetts from 2002 to 2018. Appointed to the office in February 2002,Conley was later elected on November 5,2002,and again in 2006,2010,and 2014. He retired in 2018 to enter private practice.
Gun violence is a term of political,economic and sociological interest referring to the tens of thousands of annual firearms-related deaths and injuries occurring in the United States. In 2022,up to 100 daily fatalities and hundreds of daily injuries were attributable to gun violence in the United States. In 2018,the most recent year for which data are available,the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) National Center for Health Statistics reported 38,390 deaths by firearm,of which 24,432 were suicides. The national rate of firearm deaths rose from 10.3 people for every 100,000 in 1999 to 11.9 people per 100,000 in 2018,equating to over 109 daily deaths. In 2010,there were 19,392 firearm-related suicides,and 11,078 firearm-related homicides in the U.S. In 2010,358 murders were reported involving a rifle while 6,009 were reported involving a handgun;another 1,939 were reported with an unspecified type of firearm. In 2011,a total of 478,400 fatal and nonfatal violent crimes were committed with a firearm.
Gun-related violence is violence committed with the use of a firearm. Gun-related violence may or may not be considered criminal. Criminal violence includes homicide,assault with a deadly weapon,and suicide,or attempted suicide,depending on jurisdiction. Non-criminal violence includes accidental or unintentional injury and death. Also generally included in gun violence statistics are military or para-military activities.
Operation Ceasefire(also known as the Boston Gun Project and the Boston Miracle) is a problem-oriented policing initiative implemented in 1996 in Boston,Massachusetts. The program was specifically aimed at youth gun violence as a large-scale problem. The plan is based on the work of criminologist David M. Kennedy.
Christopher S. Koper is Professor of Criminology,Law and Society at George Mason University,and a senior fellow and co-director of the evidence-based policing program in the Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy.
James Barrett Jacobs was the Warren E. Burger Professor of Constitutional Law and the Courts at New York University School of Law,where he was a faculty member since 1982. He was a specialist in criminal law,criminal procedure,and criminal justice.
Lawrence W. Sherman is an American experimental criminologist and police educator who is the founder of evidence-based policing.
David M. Kennedy is a criminologist,professor,action researcher,and author specializing in crime prevention among inner city gangs,especially in the prevention of violent acts among street gangs. Kennedy developed the Operation Ceasefire group violence intervention in Boston in the 1990s and the High Point Model drug market intervention in High Point,North Carolina,in 2003,which have proven to reduce violence and eliminate overt drug markets in jurisdictions around the United States. He founded the National Network for Safe Communities in 2009 to support cities using these and related strategies.
Criminology is the interdisciplinary study of crime and deviant behaviour. Criminology is a multidisciplinary field in both the behavioural and social sciences,which draws primarily upon the research of sociologists,political scientists,economists,legal sociologists,psychologists,philosophers,psychiatrists,social workers,biologists,social anthropologists,scholars of law and jurisprudence,as well as the processes that define administration of justice and the criminal justice system.
The Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute at Washington University School of Law,established in 2000 as the Institute for Global Legal Studies,serves as a center for instruction and research in international and comparative law.
Evidence-based policing (EBP) is an approach to policy making and tactical decision-making for police departments. It has its roots in the larger movement towards evidence-based practices.
Michael H. Tonry,an American criminologist,is the McKnight Presidential Professor of Criminal Law and Policy at the University of Minnesota Law School. He is also the director of the University of Minnesota's Institute on Crime and Public Policy. He has been a visiting professor of law and criminology at the University of Lausanne since 2001 and a senior fellow at the Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement at Free University Amsterdam since 2003.
Anthony Allan Braga is an American criminologist and the Jerry Lee Professor of Criminology at the University of Pennsylvania. Braga is also the Director of the Crime and Justice Policy Lab at the University of Pennsylvania. He previously held faculty and senior research positions at Harvard University,Northeastern University,Rutgers University,and the University of California at Berkeley. Braga is a member of the federal monitor team overseeing the reforms to New York City Police Department (NYPD) policies,training,supervision,auditing,and handling of complaints and discipline regarding stops and frisks and trespass enforcement.
Focused deterrence is a crime prevention strategy which aims to deter crime by increasing the swiftness,severity and certainty of punishment for crimes by implementing a mix of law enforcement,social services,and community mobilization. This approach also aims to identify underlying causes of gun injury-related problems and tailors specific solutions to each of them. The available evidence indicates that these programs are notably effective at reducing gun violence,though this may not be due to the provision social services. Among the focused deterrence programs that have been implemented in the United States is the Operation Ceasefire program in Boston,which aimed to concentrate law enforcement efforts on violent criminals in crime "hot spots".
The National Network for Safe Communities (NNSC) is a research center at City University of New York John Jay College of Criminal Justice. The NNSC works with communities to reduce violence,minimize arrest and incarceration,and increase trust between law enforcement and the public. Working in partnership with cities around the country the NNSC provides advising on implementing evidence-based violence reduction strategies. Additionally,the NNSC provides guidance on how to build trust between law enforcement and the communities it serves,facilitates connections between practitioners within and across jurisdictions,and serves as a resource for knowledge about violence prevention and reduction strategies.
Clark C. Abt is an American researcher born August 31,1929,in Cologne,Germany. He became an American citizen in 1945,at age 16,and is known for first formalizing the concept and usages of serious games.