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Leap on Factors Fueling Spike in Violent Crime in L.A.

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Adjunct Professor of Social Welfare Jorja Leap spoke to KPCC’s AirTalk about factors fueling a rise in violent crime in Los Angeles. In the wake of COVID-19, the killing of George Floyd and economic uncertainty that has put food and shelter at risk for many, “the bottom line is people feel out of control,” Leap said. “And some people who feel out of control act out of control.” A sense of hopelessness, combined with the proliferation of lethal weapons in the United States, has led to a high death count that has had a devastating impact on women and children in particular, with trauma reverberating through years, if not decades, she said. Leap said she hopes the upcoming Los Angeles mayor’s race puts pressure on leaders to come up with innovative approaches to public safety, such as expanding gang intervention and community outreach. “This is really an all-hands-on-deck problem,” she said. 

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Weisburst on Impact of Expanding Police Forces

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An article in the College Fix highlighted research co-authored by Assistant Professor of Public Policy Emily Weisburst on how increasing the size of a police force affects crime and arrest rates. The researchers found that the hiring of an additional 10 to 17 full-time police officers prevented one new homicide per year — a decline that’s twice as large for Black victims in per capita terms. Yet with each extra officer came seven to 22 new low-level arrests for offenses such as liquor violations and drug possession. The research team analyzed police employment data for 242 U.S. cities with populations greater than 50,000 over a 38-year period. “This study provides an estimate of the historical trade-offs of investments in law enforcement and, critically, the resulting implications for communities of color,” the authors said. The findings, first published in a December 2020 working paper, will appear in a forthcoming issue of American Economic Review: Insights. 

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Leap Highlights Paths to Upward Mobility for Youth

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Adjunct Professor of Social Welfare Jorja Leap joined the 30 for 30 podcast “The King of Crenshaw” to discuss the role that gangs play in Los Angeles. “If our culture in L.A. is a tapestry, [gangs] are several threads that run through that tapestry — the good, the bad, the ugly and the understandable,” she said.  The podcast focused on how the life and death of rapper and community activist Nipsey Hussle deeply impacted the sports world, particularly NBA players. Leap noted that many Black youth in South Los Angeles pursue basketball and rap as paths to opportunity and hope. While not the only options for upward mobility, they don’t require any special equipment but do depend on raw ability and talent. “The minute you’re busy playing sports, you’re less busy with the hood, pure and simple,” Leap said. “You can’t take the hood away without putting something in its place.”

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Leap on Complicated Origins of Gang Activity

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Adjunct Professor of Social Welfare Jorja Leap was featured in an ABC 7 News segment about the complicated history of gang activity in Los Angeles. “People think that gangs are about criminal activity, but they’re really about economics,” Leap said. She explained that when factories in South L.A. began to close down in the 1970s, job opportunities and income narrowed and created a vacuum for gang activity. “Thousands of people lost their jobs, and the area never recovered,” she said. “You don’t see the pain that goes into gang membership and the reasons why people join gangs.” Leap said the Crips, one of the oldest gangs in the South Los Angeles area, have been involved in significant social services in addition to gang activity and criminal behavior. “To understand the Crips is to understand a very lengthy, very complex picture of a street organization that began in the Southern California area,” she said.

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Loukaitou-Sideris on Making Public Transit Safer

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Urban Planning Professor Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris was featured in a Greater Greater Washington article about a proposal to temporarily ban people from public transit in Washington, D.C., if they are charged with sex or weapons offenses on the transit system. The Washington Metro’s safety board gave preliminary approval to the policy as a response to a significant increase in the number of reported sex offenses during the pandemic. In her research on harassment on transit, Loukaitou-Sideris has found that sexual harassment rates change based on environmental conditions. “Crimes like groping tend to happen in overcrowded buses or rail cars, while those committing indecent exposure tend to be emboldened when few people are around,” she explained. In one global survey, Loukaitou-Sideris found that 80% of women reported having been harassed on transit in the last three years. “That harassment, and fear of harassment, has real implications for mobility, particularly for women, LGBTQ folks and people of color,” she said.

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Lens on How to Strengthen Fair Housing Policies

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Associate Professor of Urban Planning and Public Policy Michael Lens was featured in a Washington Monthly article about the complexities and limitations of the Fair Housing Act. The Obama-era Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule, which sought to promote residential desegregation, was repealed during the Trump administration. The rule went further than the 1968 Fair Housing Act, which outlawed racial discrimination in the sale and rental of housing but did not take any affirmative steps to dismantle segregation. Now, President Joe Biden has announced his plans to revive the AFFH rule, prompting discussion about how to make it more effective and equitable. According to Lens, “a new AFFH rule should go further and include measures of access to safe neighborhoods.” He pointed to extensive data suggesting that access to low-crime neighborhoods is a primary motivator for low-income families who move and that escaping high-crime neighborhoods increases educational outcomes for students.

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Researchers Analyze Incidents Involving UCLA Police

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Property-related incidents are the most frequent type of police-related event at UCLA, followed closely by incidents involving people whose presence or behavior is deemed disruptive or out of place, without any indication of violence, according to a new report from the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies and the UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy. The study examines police activity at UCLA based on data compiled in compliance with the Clery Act, which requires public disclosure by the Police Department at UCLA regarding the nature, date, time and location of incidents, as well as their disposition status or outcome. The researchers use maps and charts to visualize Clery Act data relating to events involving police, plus some fire department responses, in 2014 and 2019, with supplemental information focusing on arrests by the UCPD in 2018, the most-recent information available. Less than 10% of events involve force or threat of violence, they found, and data maps reveal that a substantial amount of UCPD activity and arrests occur off-campus, mostly in the greater Westwood area but also farther afield. Paavo Monkkonen, associate professor of public policy and urban planning at UCLA Luskin, helped oversee the study, working with Noah D. Zatz and Jennifer M. Chacón, professors of law at the UCLA School of Law, and Alejandra A Martinez, an undergraduate research assistant at the Lewis Center who studies economics and was the lead author. Their report also found that more than 80% of reported police activity during the study periods did not result in follow-ups for any asserted or possible crime.

Heavy-Handed Charges Don’t Decrease Crime, Leap Says

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Adjunct Professor of Social Welfare Jorja Leap was featured in an Atlanta Journal-Constitution report about the dropping of charges against an Augusta man who had been detained for nearly two years. Maurice Franklin had been accused of taking part in a 2019 gang-related drive-by shooting in which no one was injured, even though his cellphone data showed that he was 20 minutes away from the crime scene at the time it occurred. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s administration has pushed heavy indictments for all gang-related crimes in the state, including the Franklin case. However, the new measures have been criticized as draconian and unnecessary. “Heavy-handed charging decisions like those made early on in this case haven’t been shown to drive down crime,” Leap said. “They can also lead to further mistrust of police, particularly in communities of color.” All 22 defendants charged in the Augusta case were people of color.

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Tensions Rising During Pandemic, Leap Says

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Adjunct Professor of Social Welfare Jorja Leap was featured in an NBC News report about the rise in violent crime during the COVID-19 pandemic. After years of remaining steady, gun violence and homicide rates skyrocketed in 2020. Many experts point to tensions associated with the pandemic as the source of increased violence, including unemployment, health concerns and racial tension. People following stay-at-home orders have more idle time, and conflicts are more likely to escalate. “We’ve got people that are under tremendous strain, and quite honestly, sometimes people just snap,” Leap said. Many people are facing joblessness and economic insecurity, and these issues have been exacerbated by conflicts between police and communities of color. “People feel unsafe … because of the mixed picture we are getting of law enforcement that is based in fact, not fiction,” Leap explained. “All of these things contribute to heightened emotions and heightened violence.”

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Leap on Alternative Measures for Promoting Community Safety

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Adjunct Professor of Social Welfare Jorja Leap joined KPCC’s “Take Two” to talk about police and social justice reform in Los Angeles. According to Leap, special units such as gang units are more adversarial than beneficial, making community members feel as though they are being watched. Instead, she pointed to the success of alternative measures like the Gang Reduction and Youth Development (GRYD) Department, in which community interventionists come together and work with residents, families and youth to stem the tide of gang violence. Residents of Los Angeles are anticipating a new relationship between law enforcement and communities of color with the establishment of the Community Safety Partnership Bureau under LAPD Chief Michel Moore, Leap said. “Relationship building is at the core of public safety,” she said, adding that it is important to reconceptualize the role of police as relationship builders partnering with community members — not as enforcers. The segment featuring Leap begins at minute 29.

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