Each year American Society of Criminology's division of Communities and Place gives out the Robert J. Bursik Junior Scholar Award. The winning paper will have made the most significant contribution to the study of Community and Place. The Robert J. Bursik Junior Scholar Award recognizes the best paper or book published (online or in print) in the past two years by division members who are either Assistant Professors or junior employees (less than seven years since terminal degree) in non-academic settings. The winners are announced and celebrated at the Division Meeting during the American Society of Criminology (ASC) annual conference in Washington, DC in November 12-15.
In 2025, Dr. Jonathan Reid was selected as the winner of the Robert J. Bursik Junior Scholar Award for the paper "A culture of White violence: The enduring impact of slavery on contemporary interracial killings" published at Social Problems.
In this paper, Dr. Reid investigates the effect of slavery's legacy on contemporary rates of interracial homicide. Using county-level negative binomial regression models, Dr. Reid finds that there is a significant association between the historical legacy of slavery and higher rates of White-on-Black Southern killings. However, a similar effect is not found to influence other race-specific homicide patterns, including Black-on-White, White-on-White, and Black-on-Black homicide. This is a very innovative way to investigate the legacy of slavery on contemporary patterns of violence.
Congratulations, Dr. Reid!