We’re all super proud of lab member Seth Williams who received his Ph.D. in 2022 from the Department of Criminology, Law & Society and will be taking a Post-doctoral Research Associate position in the Department of Sociology (and in the Center for Health and Biosciences) at Rice University. Seth will work under the direction of Professor Brielle Bryan on the “Spatial Determinants of Post-Conviction Health” project that investigates the connection between criminal justice contact, housing opportunity, place, and health. Seth broadly studies urban processes related to crime, housing, and neighborhood change. He uses quantitative methods, and has a particular interest in spatial methodologies and leveraging “big” and open data sources to examine these relationships. In his time at ILSSC he has published several impactful papers in such journals as Social Science Research, Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, Journal of Quantitative Criminology, the Annual Review of Criminology, The Professional Geographer, and Socius.. Congrats Seth! See all of our lab alumni here: https://ilssc.soceco.uci.edu/lab-members/#gradalum1
News
Graduate Student Xiaoshuang Iris Luo Defends her Dissertation Prospectus
Congratulations to graduate student Xiaoshuang Iris Luo who successfully defended her dissertation prospectus titled, “Crime Changes and Spatial Patterns: Examination of Longitudinal Models of Crime across Multiple Cities in the U.S..”
Graduate Student Navi Gill Defends her Dissertation Prospectus
Congratulations to graduate student Navi Gill who successfully defended her dissertation prospectus titled, “Toward an Abolitionist Spatial Imaginary: Reframing Violence in an Antiblack World.”
Graduate Student Ben Forthun Defends his Dissertation Prospectus
Congratulations to graduate student Ben Forthun who successfully defended his dissertation prospectus titled, “Won’t You Be My Neighbor? An Examination of Environmental Context, Resident Neighborhood Spatial Perceptions, and Implications for Aggregate Techniques.”
Irvine at 50: A Tale of Continuity and Change
The city of Irvine has experienced significant change over its 50-year history, and yet one constant is that crime has remained at a low level, and, if anything, has been declining in the most recent decade. Why is that? In this report, we explore some of the possible factors that may help account for this phenomenon. Although Irvine contains some characteristics that criminologists typically identify in cities with higher crime rates–such as population growth, racial and ethnic diversity, a relatively high concentration of rental housing units, and the presence of a large industrial area–nonetheless, the city has maintained a relatively low level of crime. In fact, for 15 straight years Irvine has been named America’s safest city of its size, based on FBI Uniform Crime Reporting statistics from 18,000 jurisdictions.
