Expertise

Crime and Place, Modeling Geographical Influences on Human Activity, Agent-Based Modeling, Crime Prevention, Technology in Policing

Biography

She has a Ph.D. in Geography (2006) and an MA (2005) in Criminology and Criminal Justice from the University of Maryland, College Park and a BS (1992) and MA (1994) in Geography from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She has spent the last twenty-two years applying geographic theory and methodology to the study of crime-related issues at both the local and national levels.

At the local level, she institutionalized the use of geographic information systems (GIS) at the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department. At the national level, Dr. Groff ran the NIJ Crime Mapping Research Center from 2001-02 where she promoted the analytic use of mapping in criminal justice agencies. For the next five years she was a Senior Research Associate at the non-profit criminal justice research firm, Institute for Law and Justice where she conducted a variety of research initiatives including the development of an agent-based simulation model of robbery, the application of mobility triangles to understanding homicide, and an evaluation of efficiency, effectiveness, and enabling impacts of COPS MORE funding.

As an early innovator in the use of GIS within law enforcement agencies, she has focused on developing evidence to improve police practice. Groff’s research has revealed which type of map communicates crime information without increasing fear (Groff, Kearley, Beatty, Couture, & Wartell, 2005), the efficacy of foot patrol for reducing violent crime if deployed at small, high crime places in sufficient strength (Ratcliffe, Taniguchi, Groff, & Wood, 2011), and that commanders are able to increase patrol at hot spots when they are provided with reports documenting the level of patrol achieved (Weisburd, Groff, Jones, Amendola and Cave, 2012). Most recently, she has identified micro-level limitations to the use of near repeat theory for reducing residential burglary (Groff and Taniguchi, 2019a; 2019b) and evaluated the use of body worn cameras by police (Groff, Haberman and Wood, 2020; Wood and Groff, 2019) and prosecutors (Groff, Ward and Wartell, 2021). These important findings have natural implications for police practice and policy.

Website | Curriculum Vitae

Selected Publications

Books: 

• Weisburd, D., Eck, J., Braga, A., Telep, C., Cave, B., Bowers, K., Bruinsma, G., Gill, C, Groff, E.R., Hinkle, J., Hibdon, J., Johnson, S., Lawton, B., Lum, C., Ratcliffe, J. Rengert, G., Taniguchi, T., and Yang, S-M. 2016. Place matters: Criminology for the 21st century. New York: Cambridge University Press.
• Weisburd, D., Groff, E.R. and S.M. Yang. 2012. The Criminology of Place: Street Segments and Our Understanding of the Crime Problem. Oxford University Press. London.
• Rengert, G. and E.R. Groff. 2011. Residential Burglary: How the Urban Environment and Our Lifestyles Play A Contributing Role. Charles C. Thomas.  

Articles since 2019:                                                                                                                                                             

• Groff, E. R., Ward, J. and J. Wartell. 2021. Tracing the Effects of Reducing Penalties on Crime and Prosecution. Journal of Criminal Justice. Vol 75, . Accepted June 17, 2021, in print August 6, 2021. DOI: 10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2021.101831.
• Groff, E. R., Haberman, C. and J. Wood. 2020. The effects of body worn cameras on police-citizen encounters and police activity: Evaluation of a pilot implementation in Philadelphia, PA. Journal of Experimental Criminology. Published on-line, November 9, 2019. DOI: 10.1007/s11292-019-09383-0.
• Groff, E.R. and T. Taniguchi. 2019. Using citizen notification to interrupt near repeat residential burglary patterns: The micro-level near repeat experiment. Journal of Experimental Criminology. 15(2), 115-149. 
• Groff, E.R. and T. Taniguchi. 2019.  Quantifying Crime Prevention Potential of Near Repeat Burglary. Police Quarterly 22(3), 330-359. Published on-line February 14, 2019, in print September 2019. DOI: 10.1177/1098611119828052.
• Taylor, R, Haberman, C. and E.R. Groff. 2019. Urban park crime: Neighborhood context and park features. Journal of Criminal Justice. 64, 13-22. on-line July 13,2019, in print September 12, 2019. DOI: 10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2019.101622.
• Wood, J. and E.R. Groff. 2019. Re-imagining Guardians and Guardianship with the Advent of Body Worn Cameras. Criminal Justice Review. 44(1), 60-75. Published on-line December 3, 2018, in print January 2019. DOI: 10.1177/0734016818814895.
• Ratcliffe, J. and E. Groff. 2019. Crime reduction benefits of CCTV cameras deployed in violent crime hot spots. Criminal Justice Review. 44(2). 148-164.
• Groff, E. R., Johnson, S. and A, Thornton. 2019. State of the Art in Agent-Based Modeling of Urban Crime: Overview, Critical Questions and Next Steps. Journal of Quantitative Criminology. Open Access http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10940-018-9376-y.

Courses Taught

• CJ 8220: CRIME MAPPING
• CJ 8320: SEMINAR IN CRIMINAL JUSTICE POLICY (CRIMINOLOGY OF PLACE)
• CJ 8330: SEMINAR IN ADVANCED CJ RESEARCH TOPICS (ADVANCED GEOSPATIAL METHODS)
• CJ 8330: SEMINAR IN ADVANCED CJ RESEARCH TOPICS (INTRODUCTION TO SIMULATION MODELING)
• CJ 3402: INTRODUCTION TO STREET LEVEL CRIMINOLOGY
• CJ 3402: INTRODUCTION TO STREET LEVEL CRIMINOLOGY – HONORS
• CJ 2597: RESEARCH METHODS