Violent Crime

This commentary appeared on NYTimes.com on May 22, 2013.

Much of the marijuana consumed in the U.S. comes from Mexico. It's impossible to know exactly, but my colleagues and I put the range at 40 to 67 percent for 2008. Our research also suggests that legalizing commercial marijuana production at the national level could drive out most of the marijuana imported from Mexico.

With marijuana legalization at the state level, imports from Mexico would depend on several factors, like how taxes influenced the market price, whether legally sold marijuana were illegally diverted to other states, and the severity of the federal response.

We don't expect the passage of legalization in a few states to significantly affect demand for Mexican marijuana. But what would happen to Mexican drug trafficking organizations if many states legalized marijuana or if there were national legalization?

This commentary appeared in New York Daily News on March 25, 2013.

According to a poll released this month by the Pew Research Center, nearly half of American gun owners report that their main reason for having a gun is protection; fewer than a third own a gun primarily for hunting. This is a striking change from 1999, when nearly half of gun owners kept firearms mainly for hunting and only about one quarter cited protection as their most important reason.

Pew's results might make sense if violent crime were surging. But it's not. Since 1993, homicide and non-negligent manslaughter in the U.S. have been cut in half. Violent crime overall is down 48%. But perhaps even more important — and less understood — an ample body of evidence indicates that the benefits of keeping a gun for protection are substantially outweighed by the associated risks.

This commentary appeared in the Orange County Register on February 19, 2013.

The war on Mexico's criminal cartels dominated the presidency of Felipe Calderon. If the country's new president, Enrique Peña Nieto, has his way, it will not dominate his administration. And although the United States applauded and supported Calderon's campaign, absent evidence that Mexico's ruling Partido Revolucionario Institucional is returning to the bad old days of lucrative détente with drug traffickers that characterized its administrations in the 1990s, the United States will not demand that Peña Nieto make continuing Calderon's campaign his primary focus.

President Peña Nieto and President Obama both face daunting domestic challenges and have ambitious domestic agendas. Critically, both administrations need a measure of tranquility and prosperity in Mexico to succeed in meeting their goals.

President Obama's task force on gun violence released its findings yesterday, raising the stakes in the policy debate on gun control and policy in the wake of the recent shootings in Aurora, Colorado, and Newtown, Connecticut. The mix of legislative proposals and executive actions includes measures to improve background checks for firearm purchasers, trace guns used in criminal acts, ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, and improve access to mental health services. The horrific attack at Sandy Hook has stimulated a national conversation on guns and the role that policies can play in reducing gun violence in the United States, but the problem of gun violence is larger and much more complex than mass shootings.

How big is the problem of firearm-related deaths in the United States?

Guns claim the lives of thousands of people in America every year. In 2010, according to data (PDF) from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 31,000 people were killed by guns in the United States.

Many policymakers and commentators in the media have suggested that mental health care has a substantial role to play in reducing gun violence. Indeed, one of the prominent criticisms of the recently announced presidential plan to address gun violence is that it focuses efforts too much on guns and not enough of mental illness. Unfortunately, those suggesting that mental health treatment is the key to preventing gun crimes often mischaracterize the current state of the science in two ways.

First, commentators have widely assumed that psychiatric disorders are good predictors of gun violence and causally related to that violence. While there is some limited evidence in the literature that psychiatric disorders are associated with violence, that empirical association is weak and not generalizable across disorders. It is plausible that perceived connections are the result of shared risk factors (e.g., prior trauma exposure) rather than a causal effect of mental health. Specifically, the very limited research investigating this association has found weak correlations, suggesting that psychiatric diagnoses may not be useful for real-world predictions of who will be violent.

This commentary appeared on The Journal of the American Medical Association on December 21, 2012.

On December 14, a 20-year-old Connecticut man shot and killed his mother in the home they shared. Then, armed with 3 of his mother's guns, he shot his way into a nearby school, where he killed 6 additional adults and 20 first-grade children. Most of those who died were shot repeatedly at close range. Soon thereafter, the killer shot himself. This ended the carnage but greatly diminished the prospects that anyone will ever know why he chose to commit such horrible acts.

In body count, this incident in Newtown ranks second among US mass shootings. It follows recent mass shootings…

The remainder of this op-ed can be found at jama.jamanetwork.com.

I began studying suicide in the military in 2008 and since that time, the number of American men and women in uniform who have taken their own lives has continued to rise. USA Today reported this week that approximately 323 service members have died by suicide this year—the highest it has been in the past decade. I have written before on what is needed to prevent military suicides. Key among these recommendations are removing the institutional barriers that prevent military personnel from seeking professional mental health counseling and considering creative ways to restrict access to firearms and ammunition.

Today, however, I would like to reflect not on preventing suicides but on the nation's need to support the families of those who take their own lives. As Americans celebrate the love and support of their families and friends in these weeks between Thanksgiving and the winter holidays, it is a bittersweet time for my family. We will be celebrating for the first time without my father, who died after undergoing surgery in October. Although the circumstances are not equivalent, the shadow of my family's loss reminds me that this season will be especially tough for the parents, siblings, children, grandparents, friends, and colleagues of the 323 men and women in uniform who have died by suicide this year. (The sad truth is that this number is actually a low estimate; it does not include members of the reserve and National Guard, nor does it include veterans who are no longer serving in the military.) These will be the first holidays they will spend without their loved ones.

Beau Kilmer, codirector of the RAND Drug Policy Research Center, discusses the 24/7 Sobriety Project, which requires those arrested for or convicted of alcohol-related offenses to take twice-a-day breathalyzer tests or wear a continuous monitoring bracelet. Those who fail or skip their tests are immediately subject to modest sanctions—typically a day or two in jail.

This commentary appeared on GlobalSecurity.org on August 8, 2012.

Jonah Blank considers the implications of Sunday's killings at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin:

American Sikhs have often been victims of terrorism-by-mistaken-identity. Because the tenets of the faith require unshorn hair, observant Sikh men generally wear turbans and keep their beards long. Perpetrators of hate-crimes against Sikhs (like the murderer of Arizona gas-station owner Balbir Singh Sodhi, in September 2001) often think they're attacking Muslims. This may not make the slaughter any more or less heinous, but it's another example of hatred flowing from ignorance.

The Associated Press released data last week showing that as Spring came to a close, the military experienced a higher number of suicides than it has ever experienced at this time before. If this trend continues, 2012 may set a record for military suicides. RAND and the Department of Defense, along with a number of other organizations, have been working on efforts to prevent suicides for a number of years, so this news was upsetting and even personally troubling. While we cannot tell how many suicides have been prevented based on programs and policies designed to prevent suicide, it suggests we need to do more.

RAND undertook research which led us to make a number of recommendations to prevent suicide among military personnel based. Two of these in particular deserve to be highlighted. First, we recommended that a comprehensive suicide-prevention strategy facilitate access to quality behavioral health care. This means removing the barriers that obstruct servicemembers from accessing care when they need it. Time and time again, servicemembers have told us that they fear negative career repercussions if they access behavioral health care. We don't know how frequently security clearances have been denied or confidentiality between patient and provider has been breached when a service member has accessed such care. However, existing policies create the perception among servicemembers that both are possible — creating what some call a “mental health stigma.” It may be more appropriately considered concern over discrimination against those who access behavioral health care, and it needs to be addressed.