Carlisle E. Moody (born May 2, 1943) is an American economist, criminologist, and professor of economics at the

College of William & Mary The College of William & Mary (abbreviated as W&M) is a public university, public research university in Williamsburg, Virginia, United States. Founded in 1693 under a royal charter issued by King William III of England, William III and Queen ...

Education

Moody received his B.A. from

Colby College Colby College is a private liberal arts college in Waterville, Maine, United States. Founded in 1813 as the Maine Literary and Theological Institution, it was renamed Waterville College in 1821. The donations of Christian philanthropist Gardner ...

and his M.A. (1966) and Ph.D. (1970) from the

University of Connecticut The University of Connecticut (UConn) is a public land-grant research university system with its main campus in Storrs, Connecticut, United States. It was founded in 1881 as the Storrs Agricultural School, named after two benefactors. In 1893, ...

, all in economics.

Research

Moody has done research on the relationship between

gun A gun is a device that Propulsion, propels a projectile using pressure or explosive force. The projectiles are typically solid, but can also be pressurized liquid (e.g. in water guns or water cannon, cannons), or gas (e.g. light-gas gun). So ...

laws and

crime In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a State (polity), state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definiti ...

. He has also published studies pertaining to other subjects in the field of

criminology Criminology (from Latin , 'accusation', and Ancient Greek , ''-logia'', from λόγος ''logos'', 'word, reason') is the interdisciplinary study of crime and deviant behaviour. Criminology is a multidisciplinary field in both the behaviou ...

, such as the effectiveness of increasing the prison population on crime rates. In a 1995 study in the journal ''Criminology'', Moody and his colleague Thomas Marvell reported that they found little evidence that sentence enhancements for gun crimes were effective at reducing crime rates or gun use. Marvell and Moody have also conducted studies on the effect of

three-strikes laws In the United States, habitual offender laws (commonly referred to as three-strikes laws) have been implemented since at least 1952, and are part of the United States Justice Department's Anti-Violence Strategy. These laws require a person who i ...

, which, according to their research, are associated with higher homicide rates. Their results were originally published in 2001 and replicated the following year. In a 2002 study, Moody, along with Grant Duwe and Tomislav Kovandzic, found very little, if any, evidence that right-to-carry laws affected the number of

mass shooting A mass shooting is a violent crime in which one or more attackers use a firearm to Gun violence, kill or injure multiple individuals in rapid succession. There is no widely accepted specific definition, and different organizations tracking su ...

s. In 2008, he co-authored a study, along with

Dave Kopel David B. Kopel (born January 7, 1960) is an American author, attorney, gun rights advocate, and contributing editor to several publications. As of August 2021, he is research director of the Independence Institute, associate policy analyst at th ...

, that found that countries with higher gun ownership rates tend to have higher levels of political and civil freedom.

Views

Moody has said that right-to-carry laws lead to lower crime rates. The National Research Council in 2004 were undecided on the topic. His research on the subject suggests that such laws deter crime but only slightly. He has said that his research suggests that states with higher prison populations have lower crime rates. In 2000, he told ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

'', "The fact is, if you put people in jail, it helps."

References

External links

Faculty profile
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Moody, Carlisle Eaton College of William & Mary faculty Living people 1943 births 21st-century American economists University of Connecticut alumni Colby College alumni American criminologists American gun rights activists