Jan 2021

Reducing Crime Through Environmental Design: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment of Street Lighting in New York City

Lucie Parker Aaron Chalfin

This paper offers novel experimental evidence that violent crimes can be successfully reduced by changing the situational environment that potential victims and offenders face. We focus on a ubiquitous but understudied feature of the urban landscape—street lighting—and report the first experimental evidence on the effect of street lighting on crime.

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Webinar: Overview of the City of Chicago’s Violence Reduction Dashboard
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The Crime Lab hosted a webinar that explored the City of Chicago’s Violence Reduction Dashboard—a publicly available tool launched to support efforts to reduce gun violence through transparent, real-time data.

Unforgiving Places: The Unexpected Origins of American Gun Violence
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Unforgiving Places: The Unexpected Origins of American Gun Violence

Apr 2025

Crime Lab Pritzker Director Jens Ludwig authored a book that argues the lack of progress in reducing gun violence ultimately stems from our having misunderstood the nature of the problem, and that behavioral science gives us a new way to understand – and solve – gun violence in America.

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Chicago’s Violence Reduction Dashboard, launched by the Crime Lab in 2021, is featured in a toolkit created by Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund as a part of its Gun Violence Data Fellowship.

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Valuing the benefits of reducing firearm violence in the United States

Jan 2025

This paper estimates the monetized value of the impact of reducing firearm violence and how that value is distributed across the population.

Latest Updates

The Alumni Dispatch: How CVILA Alumni are Shaping Policy, Practice, and Narrative
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The Alumni Dispatch: How CVILA Alumni are Shaping Policy, Practice, and Narrative

Community Violence Intervention Leadership Academy (CVILA) Program Managers Alesisia Cobb and Heather Bland sat down with alumni DeVita Briscoe from Seattle, WA and Nikesha Tilton from Selma, AL to discuss the progress of their capstone projects, their evolving leadership roles, and the systemic changes they’re pushing forward in their cities and states.

Shaping the Future of Policing Through Commander Training
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Shaping the Future of Policing Through Commander Training

Policing Leadership Academy (PLA) Executive Director Meredith Stricker and Director of Outreach and Engagement Kenneth Corey join the Brooks Bawden Moore, LLC podcast to discuss the academy’s focus on commanders and helping departments across the country reduce violence and strengthen public safety.

The federal help Chicago really needs
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The federal help Chicago really needs

The Policing Leadership Academy’s Meredith Stricker and Kenneth Corey penned an op-ed discussing the recent spotlight on crime in the U.S. and the academy’s focus on building the capacity of police commanders managing jurisdictions with the highest rates of violence.