ILSSC

Irvine Lab for the Study of Space and Crime

hippj

Congratulations Dr. Tublitz!

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Congratulations to lab member Rebecca Tublitz who successfully defended her dissertation on bail reform in Maryland this spring, 2025, and will be graduating in June.

Across three studies, Rebecca examines Maryland’s statewide bail reform to evaluate its effects on judicial decision-making and public safety, and to investigate how local court contexts shape pretrial outcomes. In the 1st study, she employs a regression discontinuity analysis to evaluate how bail reform affects judicial decision-making at the pretrial stage. In the 2nd study, she investigates the impact of bail reform on crime using a synthetic control group approach. In the final study, using multilevel modeling techniques, she analyzes how pretrial decision-making varies across court jurisdictions and explores how the social contexts of courts shape responses to new law.

Dr. Tublitz will continue conducting policy-related research at the Institute for State and Local Governance at the City University of New York.

Lab publication on nonlinear relationship between immigrant concentration and crime

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A recent publication by lab directors Kubrin and Hipp, and alum Iris Luo explores the nonlinear relationship between immigrant concentration and crime. Consistent with much existing research generally finding that the presence of more immigrants in neighborhoods is associated with lower crime rates, this study using data from neighborhoods across the U.S. in the new National Incident Crime Study (NICS) found not only a negative relationship, but that it was nonlinear. One notable finding was that at higher concentrations of immigrants, the robbery rate begins increasing; however, this pattern was not found for any other types of crime. Given the results from earlier research showing that immigrants can be targets for this type of crime given that they are more likely to be carrying cash, the evidence seems to point towards their greater victimization in these circumstances. Additional tests in the paper came to the same conclusion that victimization is what characterizes the unique robbery results. The paper is now published in the British Journal of Criminology and can be found here: “Immigration and Crime: Is the Relationship Nonlinear?”

The graphs below show the difference in results for aggravated assault and robbery, highlighting the likelihood of increased victimization in high immigrant concentration neighborhoods.

Three new lab PhDs! Sola, Luo, and Forthun

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Congrats to three of our lab members who successfully defended their dissertations this spring, 2024, and are off to bigger and better things at their new jobs.

Justin Sola defended his dissertation “Theory with Consequents”, and will now be an Assistant Professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in the sociology department. Go Tar Heels!

Xiaoshuang Iris Luo defended her dissertation “Crime Changes and Spatial Patterns: Examination of Longitudinal Models of Crime across Multiple Cities in the U.S.”, and will now be an Assistant Professor at Akron University in the department of Criminal Justice Studies.

Benjamin Forthun defended his dissertation “Won’t You Be My Neighbor? An Examination of Environmental Context, Resident Neighborhood Spatial Perceptions, and Implications for Aggregate Techniques”, and will now be an Assistant Professor at the University of Northern Colorado in the department of Criminology and Criminal Justice.

Graduate student Kyle Winnen wins Gil Geis Award

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Congrats to lab member Kyle Winnen, who was the recipient of the 2024 Gil Geis Award from the Department of Criminology, Law & Society at UC Irvine. This award recognizes excellence in research by a graduate student. Kyle received it for his three publications this year! Congrats Kyle!

Prof John Hipp gives inaugural Crime and place Webinar

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Lab co-director Dr. John R. Hipp gave the inaugural Crime and Place in the making lecture . The talk was on “The Spatial Scale of Crime: Consequences for Ecological Studies of Crime“. The series of talks in this webinar series is a joint initiative between Network Safe places at KTH and American Society of Criminology’s Division of Communities and Places (DCP). Dr. Hipp’s talk was based in part on his book that received the 2023 James Short Senior Scholar Award for best book or paper published, from the Division of Communities and Place in the American Society of Criminology.