Expertise

Social Networks, Gun Violence, Street Gangs, Co-offending, Data Science, Criminal Justice Policy, Crime Prevention, Research Methods, Media and Crime

Biography

Jason Gravel is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at Temple University. He received his PhD in Criminology, Law and Society from the University of California, Irvine, an MA in Criminology from Simon Fraser University, and a BA in Psychology from Université Laval. Prior to joining Temple, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Penn Injury Science Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Gravel’s research examines gun violence, street gangs, police misconduct, and the social dynamics of crime using social network analysis and computational methods. His work focuses on how social relationships shape violence, deviance, and policy outcomes, with the goal of informing more effective violence prevention strategies. His research has appeared in journals such as Journal of Quantitative Criminology, Justice Quarterly, Criminology & Public Policy, Network Science, Journal of Criminal Justice, and JAMA Network Open.

At Temple, he teaches courses on gun violence and policy, criminal gangs, and research methods. His work has also been featured in media outlets including NPR, NBC News, The Trace, and The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Website

Selected Publications

• Gravel, J. & Bouchard, M. (2025). The tangled history of social network analysis and gang research—A long way from Street Corner Society. Journal of Criminal Justice https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2025.102514
• Ouellet, M., Hashimi, S., Gravel, J., & Dabney, D. (2026). The influence of workplace friendships on police firearm use. Justice Quarterly. 43 (1), 228-263. https://doi.org/10.1080/07418825.2025.2520545
• Gravel, J., Valasik, M. A., Mulder, J., Leenders, R. T. A. J., Butts, C. T., Brantingham, P. J. & Tita, G. E. (2023). Rivalries, reputation, retaliation, and repetition: Testing plausible mechanisms for the contagion of violence between street gangs using relational event models. Network Science, 11(2), 324-350. https://www.doi.org/10.1017/nws.2023.8
• Gravel, J. (2024). The growing pains and coming of age of “big” gang research: Exploring the history of gang scholarship using topic modeling and change point detection. In D. C. Pyrooz, J. A. Densley, & J. Leverso (Eds.), Oxford Handbook on Gangs. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197618158.013.22
• Valasik, M., Gravel, J., Tita, G. E., Brantingham, P. J. & Griffiths, E. (2023). Territory, residency, and routine activities: A typology of gang member mobility patterns with implications for place-based interventions. Journal of Criminal Justice, 86, 102048. https://www.doi.org/10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2023.102048
• Degli Esposti, M., Gravel, J., Kaufman, E. J., Delgado, M. K., Richmond, T. S. & Wiebe, D. J. (2022). County-level variation in changes in firearm mortality rates across the US, 1989 to 1993 vs 2015 to 2019. JAMA Network Open, 5(6), e2215557. https://www.doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.15557
• Ouellet, M., Hashimi, S., Gravel, J. & Papachristos, A. V. (2019). Network exposure and excessive use of force: Investigating the social transmission of police misconduct. Criminology & Public Policy, 18(3), 675-704. https://www.doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12459
• Gallupe, O. & Gravel, J. (2018). Social network position of gang members in schools: Implications for recruitment and gang prevention. Justice Quarterly, 35(3), 505-525. https://www.doi.org/10.1080/07418825.2017.1323114
• Gravel, J., Allison, B., West-Fagan, J., McBride, M. & Tita, G. E. (2018). Birds of a feather fight together: Status-enhancing violence, social distance and the emergence of homogenous gangs. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 34(1), 189-219. https://www.doi.org/10.1007/s10940-016-9331-8

**If you or your institution do not have access to these articles, please email me and I can share a copy.**

Courses Taught

• CJ 3409: Criminal Gangs
• CJ 2597: Criminal Justice Research Methods
• CJ 3413: Gun Violence and Policy in America
• CJ 4097: Criminal Justice Capstone Seminar - Gun Control