Jeffrey Alan Fagan (born December 17, 1946) is the Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law at

Columbia Law School Columbia Law School (Columbia Law or CLS) is the law school of Columbia University, a private Ivy League university in New York City. Columbia Law is widely regarded as one of the most prestigious law schools in the world and has always ranked i ...

. He is also the director of that institution's Center for Crime, Community and Law, and a professor of

epidemiology Epidemiology is the study and analysis of the distribution (who, when, and where), patterns and determinants of health and disease conditions in a defined population. It is a cornerstone of public health, and shapes policy decisions and evidenc ...

at the

Mailman School of Public Health The Joseph L. Mailman School of Public Health is the public health graduate school of Columbia University. Located on the Columbia University Medical Center campus in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, the school i ...

Education and career

Fagan received his B.A. from

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

in 1968, and his M.A. and Ph.D. from

State University of New York at Buffalo The State University of New York at Buffalo, commonly called the University at Buffalo (UB) and sometimes called SUNY Buffalo, is a public research university with campuses in Buffalo and Amherst, New York. The university was founded in 1846 ...

in 1971 and 1975, respectively.

Work

Fagan researches multiple topics in the fields of

criminal law Criminal law is the body of law that relates to crime. It prescribes conduct perceived as threatening, harmful, or otherwise endangering to the property, health, safety, and moral welfare of people inclusive of one's self. Most criminal law i ...

and

social policy Social policy is a plan or action of government or institutional agencies which aim to improve or reform society. Some professionals and universities consider social policy a subset of public policy, while other practitioners characterize soci ...

, including

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

racial profiling Racial profiling or ethnic profiling is the act of suspecting, targeting or discriminating against a person on the basis of their ethnicity, religion or nationality, rather than on individual suspicion or available evidence. Racial profiling involv ...

. For example, he is an outspoken critic of

stop-and-frisk in New York City Frisking (also called a patdown or pat down) is a search of a person's outer clothing wherein a person runs their hands along the outer garments of another to detect any concealed weapons or objects. U.S. Law In the United States, a law enforce ...

, and his research on the practice was a major factor in

Shira Scheindlin Shira A. Scheindlin (; born 1946) is an American attorney and jurist who served as a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Early life and education Scheindlin was born in Washing ...

's decision to strike it down as unconstitutional in 2013. This research includes a 2012 report he authored which found that about 95,000 NYPD stops under this program violated the

Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution The Fourth Amendment (Amendment IV) to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. It prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. In addition, it sets requirements for issuing warrants: warrants must be issued by a judge o ...

's prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures, because police did not cite reasonable suspicion for conducting the stops in their forms. His research has also found that police stops are most effective in reducing crime when they are based on objectively suspicious behavior, which also reduces the chance that an innocent person will be detained. In 2016, he and Joscha Legewie co-authored a study that found that in the United States, police killings of black people were higher in cities with more racial polarization, especially when the city has two ethnic groups of equal population. They also found that this effect can be reduced by hiring more black police officers.

Honors, awards, and positions

In 2000, Fagan received the Bruce Smith Sr. Award from the

Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences The Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences (ACJS) is an international association established in 1963 to foster professional and scholarly activities in the field of criminal justice and criminology. ACJS promotes criminal justice and criminology edu ...

. From 2002 to 2005 he received the Investigator Award in Health Policy Research from the

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) is an American philanthropic organization. It is the largest one focused solely on health. Based in Princeton, New Jersey, the foundation focuses on access to health care, public health, health equity, ...

, and was named a Soros Senior Justice Fellow by the

Open Society Foundations Open Society Foundations (OSF), formerly the Open Society Institute, is a Grant (money), grantmaking network founded and chaired by business magnate George Soros. Open Society Foundations financially supports civil society groups around the wo ...

from 2005 to 2006. He served on the Committee on Law and Justice of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

from 2000 to 2006. He served on the

MacArthur Foundation The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is a private foundation that makes grants and impact investments to support non-profit organizations in approximately 50 countries around the world. It has an endowment of $7.0 billion and p ...

's Research Network on Adolescent Development and Juvenile Justice from 1996 to 2006. He is a fellow of the

American Society of Criminology The American Society of Criminology (ASC) is an international organization based on the campus of Ohio State University whose members focus on the study of crime and delinquency. It aims to grow and disseminate scholarly research, with members wo ...

Editorial activities

Fagan serves on the editorial boards of several criminology and law journals. He is a former

editor-in-chief An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies. The highest-ranking editor of a publication may also be titled editor, managing ...

of the ''

Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency ''Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes papers in the field of Criminology. The journal's editors Jean McGloin (University of Maryland) and Chris Sullivan (University of Missouri–St. L ...

''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fagan, Jeffrey Alan Columbia Law School faculty Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health faculty Living people New York University alumni University at Buffalo alumni American criminologists Academic journal editors 1946 births