James Densley | |
---|---|
Born | |
Education | University of Oxford University of Northampton Pace University |
Alma mater | St. Antony's College, Oxford |
Occupation | Professor |
Employer | Metropolitan State University |
Known for | Gang Research Criminology Sociology |
Awards | 2022 Minnesota Book Awards 2017 Points of Light |
Website | http://www.jamesdensley.com |
James Densley (born April 13, 1982) is a British-American sociologist and Professor of Criminal Justice at Metropolitan State University. He is best known as co-founder of The Violence Project [1] and as co-author of the bestselling book, The Violence Project: How To Stop a Mass Shooting Epidemic. [2] Densley has also published extensively on street gang issues and has been described as "among the most accomplished rising leaders of modern gang research in criminology." [3] He was one of the top 250 most cited criminologists in the world in 2019. [4]
Densley is known for his ethnography of gang life in London, England, [5] and his applications of economic signalling theory to gang membership. [6] [7] [8] Densley's research examines group processes in gangs and compares gangs with other violent collectives such as hate groups and terror groups. [9] [10] He once compared the Islamic State to a “street gang on steroids”. [11] Densley writes about the “glocalisation” of gang culture, [12] cyber violence, [13] and the role of rap music and social media in gang violence. [14] [15] [16]
James Densley was born in Leicester, England, the son of a Leicestershire special constable. [17] In 2003, he received his B.A. in sociology with American studies from the University of Northampton. [18] He earned an M.S. in sociology from the University of Oxford in 2004, and then moved to New York City where he enrolled in the NYC Teaching Fellows and taught 7th and 8th grade special education at University Neighborhood Middle School in Manhattan's Lower East Side. [19] In New York, he earned his teacher's license and a master's degree in education from Pace University. In 2007, Densley moved back to England to complete a D.Phil. in sociology from Oxford University's Extra-Legal Governance Institute. [20] Densley studied under mafia scholars Diego Gambetta and Federico Varese, and his work seems to reflect his time with them from his methods, to his theory, and focus on social organizations. [21]
After Densley graduated in 2011 he was hired by Metropolitan State University in Minnesota. He was promoted to full professor in 2019, aged just 37. [22]
The 2011 England riots occurred just weeks after Densley had finished his PhD, a study of gangs in London. After the UK Prime Minister David Cameron blamed the riots on gangs, [23] Densley was one of the first academics to question this logic. [24] [25] Densley's first book, How Gangs Work, grew out of his PhD research and reflects upon the “war on gangs” launched after the 2011 riots. [5] The British Journal of Criminology mentions the book's “critical ethnography and first-class fieldwork”, concluding that “Densley’s work points the way to how gang research should be done in the future.” [26]
In the book and in later research, Densley used signaling theory to make sense of how and why youth join gangs. [27] [28] He found that prospective gang members signal their potential value to the gang by engaging in violent and criminal acts that are beyond the capacity of most people. [6] Densley also used signaling theory to advance a model of disengagement from gangs that allows ex-gang members to communicate their unobservable inner change to others and satisfy community expectations that desistance from crime is real. [7] For Densley, religious conversion in prison was one example of a disengagement signal. [29]
Densley's work explores the rationality of gang behavior. [30] He developed an influential model of gang evolution that explains the relationship between gangs and organized crime. [31] He found that recreation, crime, enterprise, and governance were not static gang activities or distinct gang types, but instead sequential "actualization stages" in the lifecycle of gangs. Densley's evolutionary model was later validated by studies of gangs in London, England, and Glasgow, Scotland. [32] [33]
Densley also studies illicit drug dealing. [34] In 2012, he warned about the county lines model of drug distribution in which drug‐selling gangs from the major urban areas, like London, send vulnerable youth to exploit markets in other towns and areas: “Most youngers are employed by their elders to work what was known colloquially as the ‘drugs line,’ although some are sent out ‘on assignment’ to explore ‘new markets’ in areas where they are unknown to police; notably commuter cities with vibrant nighttime economies”. [35] His later work looked at debt bondage and child exploitation in county lines drug dealing, [36] [37] and how expressive uses of social media by gang members, such as posting rap videos to YouTube, helped advance gang members’ material interests in county lines. [14]
In 2017, Densley launched The Violence Project with psychologist Jillian Peterson of Hamline University. [38] In their first project, Densley and Peterson partnered with the Minnetonka Police Department to develop a new mental illness crisis intervention training for law enforcement, known as The R-Model. [39] [40] [41]
With funding from the National Institute of Justice, Densley and Peterson next built a database of all public mass shooters since 1966 coded according to 150 life history variables. [42] Their research on mass shooters included in-depth analysis of K-12 school shootings [43] and how the Columbine High School massacre became a blueprint for future massacres. [44] Densley and Peterson are critical of active shooter drills in schools for traumatizing young children and normalizing school violence. [45] [46]
In a 2019 op-ed for the Los Angeles Times that went viral, [47] The Violence Project presented a new, hopeful, framework to understand mass shootings. Based on interviews with mass shooters and people who knew them, Peterson and Densley found mass shooters had four things in common: (1) early childhood trauma; (2) an identifiable crisis point with suicidal ideation; (3) validation for their grievance, having studied past shootings to find social proof of concept; and (4) the means to carry out an attack. This conceptual framework highlights the complexity of the pathway to a mass shooting, including how each one can be “socially contagious”, [48] but also creates a plan to prevent the next shooting.
Each one of the four themes can be addressed at the individual, institutional, and societal levels. For example, by regulating access to firearms (opportunity), slowing contagion (social proof), training in crisis intervention and suicide prevention (crisis), and strengthening the social safety net (trauma), a mass shooting can be averted. Densley and Peterson elaborate on this framework in their book, The Violence Project: How To Stop a Mass Shooting Epidemic, [2] which "identifies 34 potential solutions" to the "uniquely American problem" of mass shootings. [49] Their research shows mass shooters tend to communicate or "leak" intent to do harm, often as a cry for help, which means mass shootings are preventable if people learn how to respond to the warning signs. [50]
Densley is a co-founder of Growing Against Violence, a London-based charity that since 2008 has delivered violence prevention programming to nearly 200,000 children and young people in hundreds of schools. [51] Densley wrote and piloted the original curriculum and later conducted an evaluation of the program. [52] In 2017, Densley was awarded the Prime Minister's Points of Light award for his “outstanding” volunteerism. [53]
Densley is a TEDx speaker [54] and has written for CNN, [55] [56] Education Week, [57] The Guardian, [58] Los Angeles Times, [59] New York Times, [60] Scientific American, [61] StarTribune, [62] Time magazine, [63] USA Today, [64] The Wall Street Journal, [65] The Washington Post, [66] and other media on a range of public issues, including gangs and gang responses, gun violence, knife crime, drug sales, school shootings, policing, and violent extremism. His work has featured on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and he has appeared on Andrea Mitchell Reports, BBC News, CBS This Morning, CNN Newsroom, Deadline: White House, Don Lemon Tonight, Dr. Phil, Face the Nation, Inside Edition, Morning Joe, The New Yorker Radio Hour, NBC Nightly News, NPR, PBS NewsHour, and other major news shows.
The character of Jamie Patterson in the spy novel, Jihadi Apprentice by David Bruns and J.R. Olson is based on James Densley. [69]
Organized crime or organised crime is a category of transnational, national, or local groupings of centralized enterprises run to engage in illegal activity, most commonly for profit. While organized crime is generally thought of as a form of illegal business, some criminal organizations, such as terrorist groups, rebel forces, and separatists, are politically motivated. Many criminal organizations rely on fear or terror to achieve their goals or aims as well as to maintain control within the organization and may adopt tactics commonly used by authoritarian regimes to maintain power. Some forms of organized crime simply exist to cater towards demand of illegal goods in a state or to facilitate trade of goods and services that may have been banned by a state. Sometimes, criminal organizations force people to do business with them, such as when a gang extorts protection money from shopkeepers. Street gangs may often be deemed organized crime groups or, under stricter definitions of organized crime, may become disciplined enough to be considered organized. A criminal organization can also be referred to as an outfit, a gang, crime family, mafia, mob, (crime) ring, or syndicate; the network, subculture, and community of criminals involved in organized crime may be referred to as the underworld or gangland. Sociologists sometimes specifically distinguish a "mafia" as a type of organized crime group that specializes in the supply of extra-legal protection and quasi-law enforcement. Academic studies of the original "Mafia", the Italian Mafia, which predates the other groups, generated an economic study of organized crime groups and exerted great influence on studies of the Russian mafia, the Chinese triads, the Hong Kong triads, and the Japanese yakuza.
A gang is a group or society of associates, friends or members of a family with a defined leadership and internal organization that identifies with or claims control over territory in a community and engages, either individually or collectively, in illegal, and possibly violent, behavior.
Criminal psychology, also referred to as criminological psychology, is the study of the views, thoughts, intentions, actions and reactions of criminals and suspects. It is a subfield of criminology and applied psychology.
In the United States, the relationship between race and crime has been a topic of public controversy and scholarly debate for more than a century. Crime rates vary significantly between racial groups, however, academic research indicates that the over-representation of some racial minorities in the criminal justice system can in part be explained by socioeconomic factors, such as poverty, exposure to poor neighborhoods, poor access to public and early education, and exposure to harmful chemicals and pollution. Racial housing segregation has also been linked to racial disparities in crime rates, as blacks have historically and to the present been prevented from moving into prosperous low-crime areas through actions of the government and private actors. Various explanations within criminology have been proposed for racial disparities in crime rates, including conflict theory, strain theory, general strain theory, social disorganization theory, macrostructural opportunity theory, social control theory, and subcultural theory.
Gang-related organised crime in the United Kingdom is concentrated around the cities of London, Manchester and Liverpool and regionally across the West Midlands region, south coast and northern England, according to the Serious Organised Crime Agency. With regard to street gangs the cities identified as having the most serious gang problems, which also accounted for 65% of firearm homicides in England and Wales, were London, Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool. Glasgow in Scotland also has a historical gang culture with the city having as many teenage gangs as London, which had six times the population, in 2008.
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 American gun violence. 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.
Race in the United States criminal justice system refers to the unique experiences and disparities in the United States in regard to the policing and prosecuting of various races. There have been different outcomes for different racial groups in convicting and sentencing felons in the United States criminal justice system. Although prior arrests and criminal history is also a factor. Experts and analysts have debated the relative importance of different factors that have led to these disparities.
Black Cobra is one of the largest immigrant street gangs in Denmark and is represented in most major Danish cities, with approximately 100 members. The gang is also active in Sweden, having established itself in the Malmö district Rosengård and the Stockholm suburbs of Tensta, Rissne and Rinkeby. The Black Cobra gang also control a youth gang called the Black Scorpions. Their criminal activity involves drug trafficking, robbery, theft, racketeering, extortion and murder. The police describe Black Cobra as a loose network composed of strong leadership figures. Black Cobra members wear black and white shirts with an emblem on the back of a cobra in attack position. The shirts also have Black Cobra written on them, above the emblem in Old English-style writing.
The correlates of crime explore the associations of specific non-criminal factors with specific crimes.
A mass shooting is a violent crime in which one or more attackers kill or injure multiple individuals simultaneously using a firearm. There is no widely accepted definition of "mass shooting" and different organizations tracking such incidents use different definitions. Definitions of mass shootings exclude warfare and sometimes exclude instances of gang violence, armed robberies, familicides and terrorism. The perpetrator of an ongoing mass shooting may be referred to as an active shooter.
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 Ferguson effect is an increase in violent crime rates in a community caused by reduced proactive policing due to the community's distrust and hostility towards police. The Ferguson effect was first proposed after police saw an increase in violence following the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. The term was coined by Doyle Sam Dotson III, the chief of the St. Louis police, to account for an increased murder rate in some U.S. cities following the Ferguson unrest. Whether the Ferguson effect really exists is subject of discussions with many published studies reporting contradicting findings concerning whether there is a change in crime rates, number of 911 calls, homicides, and proactive policing. Furthermore, the effect and influence of the portrayal of police brutality in the media is also contested.
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.
Mass shootings are incidents involving multiple victims of firearm related violence. Definitions vary, with no single, broadly accepted definition. One definition is an act of public firearm violence—excluding gang killings, domestic violence, or terrorist acts sponsored by an organization—in which a shooter kills at least four victims. Using this definition, a 2016 study found that nearly one-third of the world's public mass shootings between 1966 and 2012 occurred in the United States, In 2017 The New York Times recorded the same total of mass shootings for that span of years. A 2023 report published in JAMA covering 2014 to 2022, found there had been 4011 mass shootings in the US, most frequent around the southeastern U.S. and Illinois. This was true for mass shootings that were crime-violence, social-violence, and domestic violence-related. The highest rate was found in the District of Columbia, followed by Louisiana and Illinois.
Grant Duwe is an American criminologist and research director at the Minnesota Department of Corrections, as well as a non-visiting scholar at Baylor University's Institute for Studies of Religion. Duwe holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Kansas and a Ph.D. in Criminology and Criminal Justice from Florida State University.
Cuckooing is a form of action, termed by the police, in which the home of a vulnerable person is taken over by a criminal in order to use it to deal, store or take drugs, facilitate sex work, as a place for them to live, or to financially abuse the tenant. The practice is associated with county lines drug trafficking.
In the United Kingdom, the county lines drug supply model is the practice of trafficking drugs into rural areas and smaller towns, away from major cities. Criminal gangs recruit and exploit vulnerable children, sometimes including children in pupil referral units and those who have been excluded from school, and exploit them to deal drugs. Some young people are recruited via debt bondage, whereby they enter county lines to pay off drug debts.
Aaron Stark is an American mental health advocate who is best known for planning but not following through with a mass shooting in 1996.
Jillian Peterson is an American scholar in criminology and criminal Justice who works as the Director of the Forensic Psychology Program at Hamline University, located in St. Paul, Minnesota. Her academic background includes a master's degree in social Ecology and a doctorate in psychology and Social Behavior, both earned from the University of California, Irvine.
James E. Hawdon is an American sociologist, academic, and author. He is a professor of Sociology and a Director for the Center for Peace Studies and Violence Prevention at Virginia Tech.
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