Be Informed: Virtual Lecture Series is a virtual continuing education series hosted by the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences at the University of Maryland showcasing the research and expertise of our faculty in pursuit of innovative solutions to the challenges facing our global community. A range of topics including psychology, social justice, political science, human behavior and more will be addressed. This month's talk, "The Enduring Link between Race/Ethnicity and Violence: Causes and Collateral Consequences," will be presented by Dr. Maria Vélez and Dr. Brooklynn Hitchens.
ABOUT THE TALK: The Enduring Link between Race/Ethnicity and Violence: Causes and Collateral Consequences
A longstanding indicator of ethnoracial inequality in the US is the higher levels of violence in communities of color as compared to White areas. Criminologists have spent considerable time shedding light on this enduring link as well as the collateral consequences of crime in our most underserved communities.
In this interactive talk, Drs. Vélez and Hitchens approach the topic of ethnoracial differences in crime as an enduring byproduct of the racial structure that ensures starkly different neighborhood wellbeing, most notably: structural disadvantage [Peterson and Krivo 2010]. Dr. Vélez will provide a macro-level overview of patterns and shifts in neighborhood crime across ethnoracial lines by drawing on newly collected data for 7875 neighborhoods across 75 cities (1999-2013). While Dr. Hitchens will elucidate how crime as a social problem takes a dramatic toll on communities, most visibly through the prevalence of gun shootings and homicide in urban Black neighborhoods. The two will also engage the audience to consider the ways we can be socially-informed scholars who conduct more equitable research in vulnerable communities.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
María B. Vélez' general interests are to understand how stratification along racial-ethnic, political, and economic lines shapes and is shaped by the uneven patterning of crime and justice outcomes. Key themes include investigating: the influence of political conditions on crime patterns across neighborhoods; the dynamic nature of the crime; and the consequences of mass incarceration and other forms of criminal justice contact for minority political behavior and the wellbeing of democracy in the United States.
Brooklynn Hitchens is a sociologist of crime and urban ethnographer whose research interests include race, class, and gender in crime and victimization, urban violence and trauma, Black female survivors of violence, and participatory action research (PAR) methods. She is the Co-Project Director on the Wilmington Street Participatory Action Research (Street PAR) project, a multi-neighborhood research team studying violence, health, and opportunity in Wilmington, Delaware. She is also a Project Director of a five-site research team studying gun acquisition, use, and injury among "high-risk" Black youth ages 16 to 24 in Baltimore, Detroit, New York City, New Orleans, and Wilmington. Hitchens advances scholarship that centers the lived experiences of marginalized Black Americans and elucidates how structural inequities shape disparate outcomes for that population.
Cost: FREE
RVSP by 3/2/2021
REGISTER NOW
For questions about the Be Informed:Virtual Lecture Series or about this specific talk, please contact Jenny Kilberg, director of alumni and donor relations at jkilberg [at] umd.edu.
