#  Justin de Benedictis-Kessner 

 



##  Crime and Policing in Cities 

Are Democratic leaders making cities more dangerous than Republicans? Our paper in *Science Advances* shows that, in short, the answer is no.



 

 [ Read more arrow\_circle\_right ](https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/sciadv.adq8052) 

 

       ![coefficient plot with results on crime and arrests](/sites/g/files/omnuum4201/files/styles/hwp_21_9__1920x825/public/2025-01/Figure3.jpg?h=1bb0dc23&itok=tfJjPSUD) 

 

 



 

 



 

   ![official photo of Justin de Benedictis-Kessner](/sites/g/files/omnuum4201/files/styles/hwp_1_1__360x360_scale/public/2026-05/dBK_2026_sq.jpg?itok=eh7NK3Rt) 

 

I am the Emma Bloomberg Associate Professor (untenured) of Public Policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, where I lead the [Local Politics Lab](https://cities.harvard.edu/initiatives/local-politics-lab/). My [research](/research/) focuses on urban politics and policy. My work investigates how politics shapes and is shaped by some of the most important policy areas that concern local governments, such as housing, transportation, policing, and economic development. I also teach in Harvard's MPP program on politics and ethics, and lead elective courses on urban politics and policy. These classes include an [experiential field lab](https://www.hks.harvard.edu/faculty-research/policy-topics/cities-communities/laying-foundation-next-generation-civic-leaders) that partners student teams with cities and towns to work on applied urban policy problems. You can view my full CV [here](https://www.dropbox.com/s/o82r8h9m0mjugej/jdbk%20CV.pdf?dl=0).

My work has received the Clarence Stone Emerging Scholar Award and the Norton Long Young Scholar Award from the American Political Science Association, and has been published in peer-reviewed journals including the *American Political Science Review*, *American Journal of Political Science*, *Journal of Politics*, *Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences*, and *Science Advances*. I have also received funding for this research from the Unite America Institute, the MIT Election Data + Science Lab, Time-sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences (TESS), Facebook, the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, and the Boston Area Research Initiative. Prior to joining Harvard, I was an assistant professor at Boston University. I received my PhD from the [Department of Political Science](http://web.mit.edu/polisci/index.html) at the [Massachusetts Institute of Technology](http://web.mit.edu/) and my B.A. in [Government](http://www.wm.edu/as/government/) and [Psychology](http://www.wm.edu/as/psychology/) from the [College of William & Mary](http://www.wm.edu/).