Brooklynn Hitchens, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Maryland. She is a sociologist and critical criminologist who studies race, class and gender inequities in urban violent crime and trauma, along with urban policing. Using participatory action research (PAR) methods, she partners with low-income Black communities to reduce racial disparities in gun violence and other forms of crime. Her work is primarily qualitative, through the use of ethnography, interviews, and focus groups – and she also utilizes mixed methods.

Dr. Hitchens is currently working on three research projects: 1) She is the Co-Project Director of a multi-neighborhood research team studying violence, health, and opportunity in Wilmington, DE; 2) She is a Project Director on a four-site research team studying high-risk gun carrying among Black youth in Philadelphia, Detroit, Brooklyn, and Wilmington (DE); and 3) She is the Co-PI on a policing study assessing Black perceptions of and attitudes toward the Baltimore Police Department.

Dr. Hitchens advances scholarship that centers the lived experiences of marginalized Black Americans and elucidates how structural inequities influence criminal behavior and other disparate outcomes.