Lawrence Sherman, the University's first Criminology professor and director of the Jerry Lee Center of Criminology, took time between trips to France and Sweden to share his thoughts on the recent shootings on campus with The Daily Pennsylvanian.
The University is consulting Sherman on ways to improve safety on campus. Daily Pennsylvanian: What are your thoughts on Sunday's gunfire incident involving a Penn student and the Dec. 25 homicide at Philly Diner?
Lawrence Sherman: What the two of them have in common is that Penn students were not targets in either case. The Penn community was not the focus of the criminal behavior. It was simply the setting for a larger problem that has been developing in the city of Philadelphia for some time, which is the reversal of our downward trend in gun crime.
DP: How do you feel about the administration and the Division of Public Safety's response to the shootings?
LS: The fact that Sunday's shooting happened so close to our [Criminology] office shows my stake in this just as much as everyone else's, and I'm actually very pleased at the level of commitment and the rational search for solutions that I see at this campus. [It's] much better than, for example, at other universities where I've worked.
DP: Could these incidents have been prevented?
LS: The question of whether anything can be done gets us into possibilities that people don't want to consider. ... If you don't have gatherings of people, you don't have criminal events and you don't have a city either. There's a challenge to maintain the kind of urban life that brings people to Philadelphia in the first place and reduces the type of injuries from guns.
DP: What measures are effective in limiting gun violence on the streets of a city like Philadelphia?
LS: The research that we've been doing on gun crime for 20 years shows consistent success of police patrols focusing on the places and the times where these crime are more likely to occur. ... I'm calling on the city to double the number of probation officers it has and the number of pretrial supervision officers. We're talking about another 300 supervision people who can partner with police and focus on accused and convicted offenders who are likely to be carrying guns.
DP: What can be done to prevent crime from increasing in the long run after law enforcement officers leave?
LS: You basically don't leave if these are continuing trouble spots. ... There's this period of time after you leave when crime is very low and if you come back on a surprise basis. ... You don't need to be there constantly to create the general deterrent effect of uniform police patrol.
DP: What recommendations have you given President [Amy] Gutmann regarding the shootings?
LS: We are doing analyses in collaboration with the University police to try to discover more ways to try to prevent these crimes. ... But these things take time. One thing we're looking at is the pattern of prior backgrounds of people who have been arrested and are committing crime on the Penn campus. Have they been arrested, were they on probation, what sort of treatment did they get, how can we improve the criminal justice system as a crime prevention strategy for people who are arrested for crimes on Penn's campus?
DP: Can you give us a sense of the crime climate in 2006 and how it relates to Penn?
LS: The homicide rate in early 2006 is not good. It could be very temporary -- much of it is involving private relationships. Those do not affect other people, do not affect the Penn campus, but we do have to keep our eye on the general situation with gunshots.
