Franklin E. Zimring is an American criminologist, law professor, and the William G. Simon Professor of Law at the
UC Berkeley School of Law
The University of California, Berkeley, School of Law (commonly known as Berkeley Law or UC Berkeley School of Law) is the law school of the University of California, Berkeley, a public research university in Berkeley, California. It is one of 1 ...
.
Early life and education
Zimring was born on December 2, 1942 in
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
,
to television and film writer Maurice Zimring, better known by his stage name
Maurice Zimm Maurice may refer to:
People
*Saint Maurice (died 287), Roman legionary and Christian martyr
*Maurice (emperor) or Flavius Mauricius Tiberius Augustus (539–602), Byzantine emperor
*Maurice (bishop of London) (died 1107), Lord Chancellor and Lo ...
, and his wife Molly, a lawyer who passed the
California Bar
The State Bar of California is California's official attorney licensing agency. It is responsible for managing the admission of lawyers to the practice of law, investigating complaints of professional misconduct, prescribing appropriate disciplin ...
in 1933.
After graduating from
Los Angeles Public Schools, he received his B.A. with distinction from
Wayne State University
Wayne State University (WSU) is a public research university in Detroit, Michigan. It is Michigan's third-largest university. Founded in 1868, Wayne State consists of 13 schools and colleges offering approximately 350 programs to nearly 25,000 ...
in 1963 and his J.D.
cum laude from the
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...
in 1967.
[
]
Career
Zimring joined the faculty of the UC Berkeley School of Law in 1983 as director of the Earl Warren Legal Institute, a position he held until 2002.[ He was appointed the first Wolfen Distinguished Scholar in 2006 and served in that capacity until 2013.
]
Writings
Zimring has written several books on topics such as capital punishment
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
and drug control. He has also published a number of academic papers, including one in the ''University of Chicago Law Review
The ''University of Chicago Law Review'' (Maroonbook abbreviation: ''U Chi L Rev'') is the flagship law journal published by the University of Chicago Law School. It is among the top five most cited law reviews in the world. Up until 2020, it utili ...
'' in 1968 on gun control which found that both gun and knife attacks were both typically unplanned and with no intent to kill, but if a gun was available, it was more likely that the victim would die. In 1999, he (along with Gordon Hawkins) wrote the book ''Crime Is Not the Problem'', which argues that the United States does not have a problem with crime overall, but does have a problem with lethal crime, relative to other countries. In 2011, he wrote the book ''The City that Became Safe'', which is about the decline in New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
's crime rate and its causes. In 2017, his book ''When Police Kill'' was published by Harvard University Press
Harvard University Press (HUP) is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. After the retir ...
. The book explores the fact that over 1,000 Americans are killed by police each year. For example, it examines racial disparities in these killings, and concludes that these disparities are not due to higher crime rates in black neighborhoods.
Views
According to the Washington Post's Max Ehrenfreund, Zimring believes the recent decline in crime rates in New York City was larger than in other American cities largely because of the recruitment of more police officers. Zimring has said that a proposed exemption to the California law banning local communities from regulating guns, but only in Oakland, could "test the waters of local control and to see whether the political process that produces city-level gun policy can get inclusive and responsible, and whether it can get specific and selective in ways that can solve the problem." In a 2015 opinion piece in the '' New York Daily News'', he criticized claims by Heather Mac Donald
Heather Lynn Mac Donald (born November 23, 1956) is an American conservative political commentator, essayist, attorney, and author.Charles C. W. Cooke, February 26, 2014, National ReviewYes, Atheism and Conservatism are Possible: You needn’t be ...
that the Ferguson effect was responsible for a recent increase in crime rates in the United States, calling the proposed effect "fiction" and said that the evidence at the time suggested that there was "probably not" a "nationwide crime wave" of the sort Mac Donald claimed existed.
Honors and awards
Zimring's awards include the Edwin H. Sutherland
Edwin Hardin Sutherland (August 13, 1883 – October 11, 1950) was an American sociologist. He is considered one of the most influential criminologists of the 20th century. He was a sociologist of the symbolic interactionist school of thought ...
Award (2007) and August Vollmer
August "Gus" Vollmer (March 7, 1876 – November 4, 1955) was the first police chief of Berkeley, California, and a leading figure in the development of the field of criminal justice in the United States in the early 20th century. He has been de ...
Award (2006), both from the American Society of Criminology. In 1995, he received the Donald Cressey
Donald Ray Cressey (April 27, 1919 – July 21, 1987) was an American penologist, sociologist, and criminologist who made innovative contributions to the study of organized crime, prisons, criminology, the sociology of criminal law, white-collar ...
Award from the National Council on Crime and Delinquency
Evident Change, formerly the National Council on Crime and Delinquency (NCCD), is an American nonprofit social research organization. NCCD was organized by fourteen probation officers who met at Plymouth Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on June 1 ...
, as well as a Guggenheim Fellowship.[
]
Personal life
In 1967, Zimring married Susan Hilty. They have two adult children: Carl and Daniel.[ He later remarried to Michal Crawford, to whom he was still married as of April 2015.]
References
External links
Faculty profile
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zimring, Franklin E.
1942 births
Living people
UC Berkeley School of Law faculty
Lawyers from Los Angeles
Wayne State University alumni
University of Chicago Law School alumni
American criminologists
Winners of the Stockholm Prize in Criminology