Charles C. Lanfear

Data Visualization A Practical Introduction

Here’s a full draft of the upcoming second edition of my “Data Visualization: A Practical Introduction”: socviz.co

Why does Editorial Manager even have password-based login? I don't think I've ever successfully gotten into it without resetting my password.

Want to learn about computational social science *for free* and identify new research partners across academic fields? Apply to one of the 2026 Summer Institutes in Computational Social Science (described in yellow in the attached map) here: sicss.io/locations

REF: CPIS-INV-INDF-2026-02. Postdoctoral Researcher in Violence Against Women in Intimate Relations: Longitudinal Analysis of Linked Crime, Employment, and Health Administrative Records. Socio-Demogra...

📢 Hiring: Postdoc in Criminology / Sociology at UPF

Join @demosocupf.bsky.social as a Postdoc:

📊 Focus: Evaluating penal interventions in Intimate Partner Violence (IPV).
📍 Location: Barcelona, Spain.
🗓️ Deadline: March 15th, 2026.

www.upf.edu/web/politiqu...

Collective efficacy and the built environment* Collective efficacy is a prominent explanation for neighborhood crime concentrations. Just as crime is concentrated in particular neighborhoods, within-neighborhoods crime is concentrated in particul...

Sure: doi.org/10.1111/1745...

I rambled at length about this in a paper about the control of "criminogenic" properties:

'In Defence of Walkability as a Crime Prevention Strategy'.
New preprint with @ianloader.bsky.social
We challenge the consensus that walkable neighbourhoods are more criminogenic.
We highlight two flaws in the literature: i) overreliance on police statistics; and ii) neglect of motoring offences.

So damaging to our scientific organizations and young scientists trying to get started in this environment.

Lecturer (Education) in Criminology at King's College London Recruiting now: Lecturer (Education) in Criminology on jobs.ac.uk. Click for details and explore more academic job opportunities on the top job board

JOB: Lecturer (Education) in Psychology and Criminology, Kings College London www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DQQ332/l...

A poster advertising a seminar given by Dr Helen Kosc at the Institute of Criminology, on 26 February 2026 at 5PM.

Our next Lent Term public seminar will take place tomorrow, with Dr Helen Kosc speaking about ‘Desistance as Temporal Work’, based on her survey of 150 prison-leavers from HMP Bullingdon.

There is still space available on this seminar. Book your place now:
www.crim.cam.ac.uk/events/desis...

A poster advertising a public seminar by Dr Helen Kosc, from the Institute of Criminology.

Join Dr Helen Kosc in just under two weeks' time for our next Lent Term public seminar, where she will discuss 'Desistance as temporal work'.

Based on her research into 150 men released from HMP Bullingdon, she will explore what desistance entails.

Book here: www.crim.cam.ac.uk/events/desis...

And here is the call for abstracts for the 2026 Cars & Crime Symposium: jmpinasanchez.github.io/static/call%...
Taking place in Ilkley (West Yorkshire) on 30–31 July.
If your work explores the intersection of crime and road traffic (see examples below), send us your abstract.
🗓 Deadline: 17 April

I just heard that our funding application was succesful, which means there will be a 2nd #Cars&Crime symposium on the 30/31 of July in Leeds. This time open to everyone. Call for abstracts to be circulated around Easter.
If you are doing research in this area we want to hear from you.

This is the link to the talk I am giving on Thursday 12th Feb (5-6pm) at the Inst. of Criminology @ Cambridge:

www.crim.cam.ac.uk/events/explo...

Yeah, I immediately imagined the chain where this metric gets built into the Elsevier submission pipeline and either you pay and it tells you your novelty score and/or editors see it on submission and make decisions. And either way they train AI on it and sell that AI to help you write/edit papers.

I received this invitation and paid it little attention, but now thinking about it, I'm angry about the concept. The project website and related Nature piece are inattentive and dismissive of any critiques of novelty and its quantification. Much effort for a new line on the Goodhart's Law wiki page.

Most research in Criminology has serious methods issues, but I take it as an opportunity rather than a source of embarrassment when teaching methods. Helps show value of fundamentals and importance of being a critical consumer of literature.

A poster advertising a public seminar by Professor Stephen Farrall.

One week left until the first of the Lent Term public seminars, given by Professor @stephenfarrall.bsky.social from the @uniofnottingham.bsky.social, about New Labour's policy on crime and its effect on crime over individuals' life course.

Learn more and book: www.crim.cam.ac.uk/events/explo...

"Formatting Graphs", with Andrezj Uhl, from Leeds. Andrezj will introduce the art of 'graph retouching', or how to make your graphs more intuitive and effective using simple online tools like Canva. A workshop of interest to all, regardless of data analysis skills. forms.office.com/pages/respon...

Want to know more about the Potential Outcomes Framework? Check out this short course from the @whiteroseuc.bsky.social DTP training team, based on @clanfear.bsky.social’s great presentation during his visit to Leeds.
wrdtp.ac.uk/methods-reso...

A poster advertising a public seminar by Professor Stephen Farrall.

Join Professor @stephenfarrall.bsky.social for this year's first Lent Term public seminars on 12 February, titled 'The effects of New Labour’s social policy agenda on crime over the life-course'.

Learn more and apply: www.crim.cam.ac.uk/events/explo...

How can the use of different modes of survey data collection introduce bias? An introduction to mode effects using directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) Abstract. Survey data are self-reported data collected directly from respondents by a questionnaire or an interview and are commonly used in epidemiology.

Users of survey data, lovers of DAGs, and general methodological enthusiasts, gather round!

I'm so excited to share this new paper, joint work with my brilliant colleagues @rjsilverwood.bsky.social, @pwgtennant.bsky.social, and Liam Wright.

🧵

Juvenile Arrest as a Life Course Trap: Being arrested as a juvenile is associated with a 20-30 percentage-point drop in the likelihood of graduating from a 4-year college.

-Garrett Baker, David Kirk, & Rob Sampson, new in SocIology of Education journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Congrats!

📊 Analytical Sociologists: just over one week left to submit your abstract for this year’s INAS conference at Nuffield College 📚
We look forward to your contributions! 📄✨ www.nuffield.ox.ac.uk/our-research... @nuffieldlibrary.bsky.social @sociologyoxford.bsky.social

I am now an Associate Professor, which means people from my hometown think I stopped working for a professor but am still in touch with them.

Ya'll sure make some pretty pictures

Paper out with @jpinasanchez.bsky.social & @marcelo-f-aebi.bsky.social in @socialindicators.bsky.social 🔔
How often do we compare crime recorded across countries? We show that crime counting rules vary widely across countries and this strongly affects cross-country comparisons

📢 We’re hiring a Lecturer in Criminology & Criminal Justice 📢
Please do share widely 1/3

Screenshot of title page including the following abstract: To minimise confounding bias and disentangle warranted from unwarranted disparities, researchers examining sentencing discrimination have traditionally sought to control for as many legal factors as possible. However, over the past decade, a growing number of scholars have questioned this strategy, noting that many legal factors are themselves subject to judicial discretion and that controlling for them can introduce post-treatment bias. Here, we use directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) to provide a formal and comprehensive assessment of the different types of bias that may arise from different choices of controls. In addition, we propose a new modelling framework to facilitate the selection of controls and reflect the model uncertainty created by the trade-off inherent in judicially-defined legal factors and other factors with a similar dual causal role. We apply this framework to examine race disparities in US federal courts and gender disparities in the England and Wales magistrates’ court. We find substantial model uncertainty for gender disparities and for race disparities affecting Hispanic offenders, rendering estimates of the latter inconclusive. Disparities against black offenders are more consistent and — under specific conditions — could be interpreted as evidence of direct discrimination.

Thrilled to share my latest paper entitled, "Estimating Discrimination in Sentencing: Distinguishing between Good and Bad Controls"

Led by @jpinasanchez.bsky.social, the paper introduces a framework for examining discrimination in criminal justice processes.

🧵 1/10

publicera.kb.se/ejels/articl...