Baćak, V. & Apel, R. (2021). Police fairness and legitimacy across the post-communist divide in Europe. Law & Society Review, 55(3), 473-495.

In the present study, we compared two European regions with deeply contrasting policing traditions—post-communist countries and established democracies—to explore whether political history may have long-term consequences for police–public interactions. Using data from 26 countries that participated in the 2010 European Social Survey, we first measured and compared the prevalence of police-initiated contact and satisfaction with... Learn More

Baćak, V., Mausolf, J., & Schwarz, C. (2021). How comprehensive are media-based data on police officer-involved shootings? Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 36, 55-65.

In the absence of systematic data collection by the state and federal governments, efforts to collect information on officer-involved shootings (OIS) have been assumed by the public and news agencies. In a combination of journalistic reporting and what is known as crowdsourcing, media and masses of individuals volunteer their time to identify OIS incidents and... Learn More

Hyatt, J., Baćak, V., & Kerrison, E. (2021). COVID-19 vaccine refusal and related factors: Preliminary findings from a system-wide survey of correctional staff. Federal Sentencing Reporter, 33(4), 272–277.

n partnership with the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (PADOC), a team including BIDS Faculty Affiliate Erin M. Kerrison (and colleagues Jordan M. Hyatt and Valerio Baćak) administered an electronic survey to a diverse sample of PADOC correctional staff (n=4,232) about their perceived exposure to COVID-19 while working, perceptions of vaccine safety, and willingness to accept a no-cost vaccination.  (1)... Learn More

Raz, M., Dettlaff, A., & Edward, F. (2021). “The Perils of Child ‘Protection’ for Children of Color: Lessons from History”. Pediatrics.

Based upon recent investigation rates, as many as 37% of children born this year in the United States may become the subject of a child welfare system investigation. Among Black children, an estimated close to 50% are likely to be subject to such an investigation.1  Although rates of serious physical injury to children are on the... Learn More

This article provides county-level estimates of the cumulative prevalence of four levels of Child Protective Services (CPS) contact using administrative data from the 20 most populous counties in the United States. Rates of CPS investigation are extremely high in almost every county. Racial and ethnic inequality in case outcomes is large in some counties. The... Learn More

Family separation is a defining feature of the U.S. government’s policy to forcibly assimilate and dismantle American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) tribal nations. The historical record catalogues the violence of this separation in several ways, including the mass displacement of Native children into boarding schools throughout the 19th century and the widespread adoption of... Learn More

McCarthy, B., Jansson, M., & Benoit, C. (2021). Job attributes and mental health: A comparative study of sex work and hairstyling. Social Science 10,

A growing literature advocates for using a labor perspective to study sex work. According to this approach, sex work involves many of the costs, benefits, and possibilities for exploitation that are common to many jobs. We add to the field with an examination of job attributes and mental health. Our analysis is comparative and uses... Learn More

Hagan, J., McCarthy, B., & Herda, D. (2021). Racist torture and the code of silence: A situational analysis of sidebar secrecy and legal cynicism in the trial of Jon Burge. Du Bois Review 1-30. doi:10.1017/S1742058X21000151

We join Eduardo Bonilla-Silva’s structural theory of the racialized U.S. social system with a situational methodology developed by Arthur L. Stinchcombe and Irving Goffman to analyze how law works as a mechanism that connects formal legal equality with legal cynicism. The data for this analysis come from the trial of a Chicago police detective, Jon... Learn More

Herrera, J., & McCarthy, B. (In press). Street harassment interpretations: An exploration of the intersection of gender and race/ethnicity, and mediator variables. Violence Against Women

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Hagan, J., McCarthy, B., & Herda, D. (2022). Chicago’s reckoning: Racism, politics, and the deep history of policing in an American city. New York: Oxford University Press.

A searing examination of the long history of police misconduct and political corruption in Chicago that produced the city’s current racial reckoning Chicago faces a racial reckoning. For over 50 years, Chicago Mayors Richard J. and Richard M. Daley were at the helm of a law-and-order dynasty that disadvantaged predominantly Black and Brown neighborhoods and... Learn More