Maryland Crime Research and Innovation Center

A team of researchers from the University of Maryland College Park and the University of Maryland Baltimore have received an MPower grant to support their project, “Comparing Firearm Violence from Trauma Units and Police,” which will analyze police data and shock trauma data in Baltimore to integrate public health and public safety knowledge and better understand the overlap between gun violence victims and offenders.

The project is co-led by principal investigators Gary LaFree, Professor and Founding Director of the Maryland Crime Research and Innovation Center (MCRIC) on the University of Maryland College Park campus, and Kyla Liggett-Creel, Clinical Assistant Professor in the School of Social Work on the University of Maryland Baltimore campus. The research team also includes Joseph Richardson, the Joel and Kim Feller Professor of African American Studies and Anthropology and MPower Professor; Corey Shdaimah, Professor in the School of Social Work at Baltimore; Kiminori Nakamura, Research Professor in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at College Park; Paul Thurman, Nurse Scientist in Trauma and Critical Care at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore; and graduate research assistant, data analyst, and Ph.D. candidate Meghan Kozlowski-Serra.

The purpose of the proposed research is to better understand trends and community perceptions of gun violence by using a collaborative, community-based approach to identify modifiable risk factors for violence prevention.

While gun violence and its sequelae are the leading cause of death and disability among young males aged 18-34, prior research has been constrained by outdated conceptions of gun violence as a public health or a public safety problem. The latter has resulted in a research literature on gun violence divided into separate silos for studies of people who have committed gun violence and those who have survived gun violence.  The need for a better understanding of gun violence is especially acute in urban areas like Baltimore, which has experienced more than 300 homicides per year for the past five years, most of them gun-related. 

The researchers intend to leverage their data analysis and increased understanding to help develop strategies for: early intervention, gun violence reduction through early warning systems, criminal justice policy recommendations, and positive health outcomes, including reductions in early mortality, increased life expectancy, and decreased chronic disability associated with gun violence.