The University of Chicago Crime Lab analyzes policies and identifies evidenced-based solutions to tackle today’s most pressing social challenges, through collaborations with faculty not just at the University of Chicago but at leading institutions around the country such as UC Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, Duke, Harvard, Michigan, Northwestern, NYU, Princeton, University of Pennsylvania, and Yale. As part of the University of Chicago, our projects and partnerships are subject to the university’s internal vetting procedures to ensure our work is ethical, transparent, rigorous, and objective. We have a responsibility to act urgently and always center the lived experience of the neighborhoods and people for whom we do this work first.

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We partner with cities to help keep communities safe from gun violence. Many of the programs we design and test connect those who are most likely to be involved in gun violence with social services, job training and behavioral science-informed supports. We also work to improve law enforcement agencies by helping to implement necessary reforms, including those recommended by the Obama Administration Department of Justice as part of Chicago’s consent decree.

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Sample Publications

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Sara B. Heller, Anuj K. Shah, Jonathan Guryan, Jens Ludwig, Sendhil Mullainathan, Harold A. Pollack, “Thinking, Fast and Slow? Some Field Experiments to Reduce Crime and Dropout in Chicago,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 132, Issue 1, February 2017, Pages 1–54. 

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Philip J. Cook, Kenneth Dodge, George Farkas, Roland G. Freyer, Jr., Jonathan Guryan, Jens Ludwig, Susan Mayer, Harold Pollack, and Laurence Steinberg. “Not Too Late: Improving Academic Outcomes for Disadvantaged Youth,” Institute for Policy Research Northwestern University Working Paper Series WP-15-01, 1 – 42.

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Roseanna Ander, Jonathan Guryan, Jens Ludwig, “Improving Academic Outcomes for Disadvantaged Students: Scaling Up Individualized Tutorials.” The Hamilton Project Brookings, March 2016.

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Brice Cooke, Binta Zahra Diop, Alissa Fishbane, Jonathan Hayes, Aurelie Ouss, Anuj Shah, “Using Behavioral Science to Improve Criminal Justice Outcomes” ideas42, Crime Lab, January 2018.