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

Columbia Law School Columbia Law School (CLS) is the Law school in the United States, law school of Columbia University, a Private university, private Ivy League university in New York City. The school was founded in 1858 as the Columbia College Law School. The un ...

. 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 Risk factor (epidemiology), determinants of health and disease conditions in a defined population, and application of this knowledge to prevent dise ...

at the

Mailman School of Public Health The Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health (formally the Joseph L. Mailman School of Public Health) is the public health graduate school of Columbia University. Located on the Columbia University Irving Medical Center campus in the ...

Education and career

Fagan received his B.A. from

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...

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 referred to as UB, University at Buffalo, and sometimes SUNY Buffalo) is a public research university in Buffalo and Amherst, New York, United States. The university was founded in 1846 a ...

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 proscribes conduct perceived as threatening, harmful, or otherwise endangering to the property, health, safety, and Well-being, welfare of people inclusive of one's self. Most criminal l ...

and

social policy Some professionals and universities consider social policy a subset of public policy, while other practitioners characterize social policy and public policy to be two separate, competing approaches for the same public interest (similar to MD a ...

, including

capital punishment Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence (law), sentence ordering that an offender b ...

and

racial profiling Racial profiling or ethnic profiling is the offender profiling, selective enforcement or selective prosecution based on race or ethnicity, rather than individual suspicion or evidence. This practice involves discrimination against minority pop ...

. For example, he is an outspoken critic of stop-and-frisk in New York City, and his research on the practice was a major factor in

Shira Scheindlin Shira Ann Scheindlin (; née Joffe; born August 16, 1946) is an American attorney and jurist who served as a United States federal judge, United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. She ...

'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 and sets requirements for issuing warrants: warrants must be issued by a judge or magistra ...

'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. 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 an American grantmaking network founded by business magnate George Soros. Open Society Foundations financially supports civil society groups around the world, with the s ...

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, NGO, 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 ...

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 117 countries around the world. It has an endowment of $7.6 billion and ...

'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 editor-in-chief heads all departments of the organization and is held accoun ...

of the '' Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency''.

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 American academic journal editors 1946 births Recipients of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers