The Department of African American Studies is thrilled to welcome Brooklynn Hitchens from the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice to speak for one of the Fall 2022 Brown Bag events. Dr. Hitchens will present her ongoing, collaborative research on how the public health epidemic of urban gun violence has collateral consequences for low-income Black women and girls. They not only live in a complex social world intertwined with the threat of violent death or injury—but they are left behind when guns and incarceration remove the men from their communities. Using street participatory action research (Street PAR) and a mixed-method design, Hitchens examines how these women and girls become homicide survivors and co-victims of violence. She reveals how they are tasked with the “gendered punishment” of traumatic loss while nurturing families and communities, while mitigating their own risk in distressed contexts. Their experiential knowledge is critical to better understanding both the problems and solutions of gun violence in urban America.

Join the event in person: 1102 Conference Hall; Taliaferro Hall

Join the event online: https://go.umd.edu/secondkillings

"Brooklynn Hitchens, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Maryland. She is a sociologist and critical criminologist who studies race, class and gender inequities in urban violent crime and trauma, along with urban policing. Using participatory action research (PAR) methods, she partners with low-income Black communities to reduce racial disparities in gun violence and other forms of crime. Her work is primarily qualitative, through the use of ethnography, interviews, and focus groups – and she also utilizes mixed methods.

Dr. Hitchens is currently working on three research projects: 1) She is the Co-Project Director of a multi-neighborhood research team studying violence, health, and opportunity in Wilmington, DE; 2) She is a Project Director on a four-site research team studying high-risk gun carrying among Black youth ages in Philadelphia, Detroit, New York City, and Wilmington (DE); and 3) She is the Co-PI on a policing study assessing Black perceptions of and attitudes toward the Baltimore Police Department.

Dr. Hitchens advances scholarship that centers the lived experiences of marginalized Black Americans and elucidates how structural inequities influence criminal behavior and other disparate outcomes."

Source: Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice