Work in progress

Current research projects

• The Impact of Stop and Search on Youth Mental Health and Crime Involvement

  • Research team:
    • Principal Investigator: Thiago R. Oliveira
    • Co-investigators: Arabella Kyprianides (UCL) and Ben Bradford (UCL)
    • Advisor: Paul Quinton (College of Policing)
  • Funder: Youth Endownment Fund
    • £196,503.35
    • September 2025 — March 2027

• Stop and Search and the Reproduction of Social Inequality

  • Research team:
    • Principal Investigator: Thiago R. Oliveira
    • External Partner: Paul Quinton (College of Policing)
  • Funder: ESRC Vulnerability & Policing Futures Research Centre
    • £23,226.24
    • May 2025 — April 2026

Manuscripts under review

• Legal cynicism and the enduring legacy of abusive policing

  Thiago R. Oliveira, David S. Kirk, Charles C. Lanfear, & Robert J. Sampson

  Invited to Revise and Resubmit, American Journal of Sociology

  See abstract

  This article advances an analytical model of legal cynicism by examining the enduring legacy of abusive policing practices within neighborhoods across decades. We assess the extent to which the over-policing of neighborhoods fosters cynicism of legal norms and institutions, which in turn contributes to the persistence of violence. We also specify theoretical macro-micro mechanisms and suggest that legal cynicism can operate both as a place-oriented, cultural frame and a person-oriented, cognitive frame. By linking data on civilian complaints about police use-of-force and abuse filed against Chicago Police Department officers from 1991 to 2016 with community and longitudinal survey data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, as well as police-recorded crimes and the US Census, we test different mechanisms through which over-policing shapes violence. First, at the neighborhood level, we show that concentrations of complaints about over-policing are associated with subsequent increases in violent crime, and that a neighborhood culture of cynicism about police capacity and intentions mediates these effects. Second, at the individual level, we show that cumulative neighborhood exposure to over-policing is associated with criminal offending, and that adolescents growing up in over-policed neighborhoods develop persistent cynicism about collective moral rules, lasting into adulthood up to twenty years later. We therefore advance a theoretical framework using novel data and advanced statistical methods to provide key insights into the enduring legacy of abusive policing for legal cynicism and the reproduction of violence.

  Pregistration available at OSF Registries https://osf.io/xgeyn.

• Legal cynicism in the life course: Long-term implications of early experiences with policing

  Thiago R. Oliveira & Nicola Fox

  Under review, Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency

  See abstract

  Objectives: Examine whether experiences with police stops during adolescence are associated with legal cynicism across the life course. Examine whether adolescent police exposure is associated with adult criminal justice involvement, and whether this association is explained by moral cynicism toward legal norms. Methods: We draw on data from the British Cohort Study, a cohort study following the lives of all individuals born in a single week in 1970 in the UK. Longitudinal models estimate the association between respondents’ experiences with police stops between ages 10 and 16 and moral cynicism in adolescence and across adulthood through age 42, as well as with criminal justice involvement. All models adjust for key childhood developmental and behavioral antecedents measured at age 10. Results: Respondents exposed to police stops during adolescence report higher moral cynicism at ages 16 and 26, a gap that persists through age 42 without attenuation. Exposed respondents are also more likely to be arrested in adulthood, an association attenuated by adult moral cynicism. Conclusions: Adolescent police exposure has durable associations with legal cynicism across the life course. The crystallization of moral cynicism into a stable cognitive frame in early adulthood is one potential pathway linking adolescent police exposure to later criminal justice involvement.

• Escalatory encounters, racialized policing, and the neighborhood context of police use of force

  Amal Ali & Thiago R. Oliveira

  Under review, Criminology

  See abstract

  This study examines whether neighborhood ethnic minority and immigrant concentration is associated with the spatial concentration of stop and search activity and the rate of encounters escalating into use of force incidents in England, and whether suspect ethnicity and neighborhood conditions interact to produce racialized patterns of escalation. Linked stop and search and use-of-force records from Norfolk and Suffolk Constabularies (2021–2023; N = 24,971 encounters across 1,001 neighborhoods) are analyzed in two parts. Part A estimates spatial Durbin models of neighborhood-level stop and search counts and rates of escalatory encounters. Part B estimates multilevel linear probability models of encounter-level escalation, including a cross-level interaction between neighborhood ethnic minority and immigrant concentration and suspect ethnicity. We find that neighborhoods with higher ethnic and immigrant concentration have more stop and search activity and higher rates of escalatory encounters, after adjusting for important confounders. Stops involving Black suspects are more likely to escalate than stops involving White suspects. The probability of escalation for Black suspects is high and homogeneous across neighborhoods, whereas for White suspects it increases with neighborhood ethnic minority and immigrant concentration. Racialized policing operates through person- and place-oriented mechanisms, with policy implications for how policing is organized across space.

• Cold calculations: How conflict characteristics shape external support in armed conflicts

  Celine Giese & Thiago R. Oliveira

  Under review, The British Journal of Criminology

  See abstract

  Armed conflicts have long-lasting consequences, yet criminology has paid limited attention to the role of external supporters in shaping conflict dynamics. This study examines whether conflict characteristics influence external support in armed conflicts. Drawing on data from 472 dyads across 212 conflicts (1975-2017), we estimate hybrid multilevel regression models to assess within- and between-dyad variation in support provision. Results indicate that indirect forms of support are more responsive to conflict characteristics than direct military interventions, with conflict type, intensity, and the post-9/11 period emerging as key correlates. Interpreted through the distinction between ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ violence, findings suggest that external support reflects calculated decision-making rather than emotionally driven responses. We discuss implications for criminological scholarship on state responsibility and complicity in armed conflict. Keywords: armed conflicts, external support, criminology of war, state crime

• Climate change and crime, Shifts in seasonal violence patters

  David Buil-Gil, Thiago R. Oliveira, & Diego J. Maldonado-Guzmán

  Under review, Journal of Experimental Criminology

  See abstract

  Seasonal patterns in violent crime are among the most robust findings in criminology, typically linked to weather conditions and routine activities. Yet little is known about how climate change, particularly shifting rainfall patterns associated with global warming, may be reshaping these long-standing seasonal cycles. In some regions of the world, rainfall patterns have already changed substantially over the last decades, prompting the question on how climate change is affecting seasonal patterns of violence. This study examines whether recent changes in rainy and dry periods in the Central American and Caribbean region are influencing the seasonality of violent crime. We analyze data on violent offences from three case studies: Colombia (2003-2024), Mexico (1997-2024), and Gainesville, Florida (2011-2024). Data are modelled using a series of fixed-effects panel regression s with fixed effects for year and monthmodels on monthly anomalies in rainfall, temperature, and violent crime patterns, and, where possible, random slopes for geographic areas. Each case study offers a distinct analytical perspective: Colombia provides fine-grained spatial and temporal detail, Mexico extends temporal coverage to nearly three decades, and Gainesville introduces a Global North comparison. Across all three contexts, we observe a displacement of traditional seasonal crime cycles that correspond with shifts in rainfall seasonality—wetter-than-usual months and lower-than-usual violence levels tend to co-occur. Multiple modelling approaches yield consistent results. The fFindings suggest that climate change may be altering not only environmental conditions but also the temporal rhythms of crime, calling for renewed attention to the climate-crime nexus in theory and policy.

Manuscripts in preparation

• Cumulative injustice: Exposure to unjust policing across the life course

  Thiago R. Oliveira, Jonathan Jackson, & David S. Kirk

  Solicited article, Annual Review of Criminology

• Policing, legal estrangement, and the reproduction of social inequality

  Thiago R. Oliveira

• Racial inequality and the neighborhood context of the ‘overpolicing-underpolicing paradox’

  Thiago R. Oliveira & David S. Kirk