Franklin Zimring

Franklin Zimring was a member of the University of Chicago law faculty as Llewellyn Professor of Law and director of the Center for Studies in Criminal Justice. He joined the Boalt faculty in 1985 as director of the Earl Warren Legal Institute. He was appointed the first Wolfen Distinguished Scholar in 2006.

Mr. Zimring’s major fields of interest are criminal justice and family law, with special emphasis on the use of empirical research to inform legal policy. He is best known for his studies of the determinants of the death rate from violent attacks; the impact of pretrial diversion from the criminal justice system; and criminal sanctions.

He has been a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania and Yale University, and a fellow of the Center for Advanced Studies in Behavioral Sciences. He is a fellow of the American Society of Criminology and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Since 1998, he has been an expert panel member for the U.S. Department of Education Panel on Safe, Disciplined and Drug-Free Schools and an advisory member for the National Research Council Panel on Juvenile Crime: Prevention, Intervention and Control. He is the principal investigator for the Center on Culture, Immigration and Youth Violence Prevention.

Mr. Zimring is the author or co-author of many books on topics including deterrence, the changing legal world of adolescence, capital punishment, the scale of imprisonment, and drug control. Recent books include The Contradictions of American Capital Punishment, American Youth Violence, and Crime Is Not the Problem: Violence in America.