Alfred Blumstein (born 1930) is an American scientist and the

J. Erik Jonsson John Erik Jonsson (6 September 1901 – 31 August 1995) was a co-founder and early president of Texas Instruments Incorporated. He became Mayor of Dallas, a major advocate of the creation of Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, and a philan ...

University Professor of Urban Systems and Operations Research at the Heinz College and Department of

Engineering and Public Policy Engineering and Public Policy, informally known as EPP, is an interdisciplinary academic department within the Carnegie Mellon College of Engineering. EPP combines technical analysis with social science and policy analysis, in order to address pr ...

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...

. He is known as one of the top researchers in

criminology Criminology (from Latin , "accusation", and Ancient Greek , ''-logia'', from λόγος ''logos'' meaning: "word, reason") is the study of crime and deviant behaviour. Criminology is an interdisciplinary field in both the behavioural and s ...

and

operations research Operations research ( en-GB, operational research) (U.S. Air Force Specialty Code: Operations Analysis), often shortened to the initialism OR, is a discipline that deals with the development and application of analytical methods to improve decis ...

. In 1998, Blumstein was elected a member of the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of ...

for bringing systems engineering and operations research to the field of criminology.

Biography

Blumstein graduated with his bachelor's degree and Ph.D. from

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

and worked at the

Institute for Defense Analyses The Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) is an American non-profit corporation that administers three federally funded research and development centers (FFRDCs) – the Systems and Analyses Center (SAC), the Science and Technology Policy Institute ...

before joining the Heinz College. Blumstein directs the NSF-funde
National Consortium on Violence Research
at

Carnegie Mellon Carnegie may refer to: People *Carnegie (surname), including a list of people with the name *Clan Carnegie, a lowland Scottish clan Institutions Named for Andrew Carnegie * Carnegie Building (Troy, New York), on the campus of Rensselaer Polyte ...

and was dean of the Heinz College from 1986 to 1993 He is a fellow of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...

(AAAS) and the American Society of Criminology and serves as President of the latter. Blumstein was president of the Operations Research Society of America (ORSA) in 1977–1978, The Institute of Management Sciences (TIMS) in 1987-88 and in 1996 he was the president of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS). He became an INFORMS Fellow in 2002. He was awarded the Wolfgang Award for Distinguished Achievement in Criminology in 1998 and was elected a member of the

in 1998. He also shares the 2007

Stockholm Prize in Criminology The Stockholm Prize in Criminology is an international prize in the field of criminology, established under the aegis of the Swedish Ministry of Justice. It has a permanent endowment in the trust of the Stockholm Prize in Criminology Foundation. ...

, the highest award in the field—he and his co-recipient are the first two Americans to earn the prize. In 1996, he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree by the

John Jay College of Criminal Justice The John Jay College of Criminal Justice (John Jay) is a public college focused on criminal justice and located in New York City. It is a senior college of the City University of New York (CUNY). John Jay was founded as the only liberal art ...

of the

City University of New York The City University of New York ( CUNY; , ) is the public university system of New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven senior colleges, seven community colleges and seven pro ...

. He is married and has three daughters and four grandchildren.

Work

Blumstein's research centers around modeling criminal careers, deterrence, prison population, transportation analysis, drug-enforcement policy, and he developed "lambda" in criminology as a measurement of an individual's offending frequency.

Publications

* 1968. ''National program of research, development, test, and evaluation on law enforcement and criminal justice.'' * 1970. ''Systems analysis for social problems''. Edited with Murray Kamrass and Armand B. Weiss. * 1978. ''Assembly of Behavioral and Social Sciences (U.S.). Panel on Research on Deterrent and Incapacitative Effects. Deterrence and incapacitation: estimating the effects of criminal sanctions on crime rates''. Edited with Jacqueline Cohen and

Daniel Nagin Daniel Steven Nagin (born November 29, 1948) is an American criminologist, statistician, and the Teresa and H. John Heinz III University Professor of Public Policy and Statistics at Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz College. Education Nagin re ...

. * 1983. ''Research on sentencing: the search for reform''. Edited with others. * 1986. ''Criminal careers and "career criminals"''. Edited with others. * 2000. ''Crime drop in America''. Edited with Joel Wallman. * 2007. ''Key issues in criminal career research: new analyses of the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development''. With Alex R. Piquero and David P. Farrington.

References

External links

Alfred Blumstein Stockholm Prize bioAlred Blumstein's Heinz College bioUS Department of Justice article on Alfred Blumstein's contributions to criminologyBiography of Alfred Blumstein
from the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences {{DEFAULTSORT:Blumstein, Alfred Carnegie Mellon University faculty Cornell University alumni American criminologists American operations researchers Living people American systems scientists 1930 births Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering Winners of the Stockholm Prize in Criminology Fellows of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences