Franklin Zimring has for more than two decades been a leader in empirical research on legal policy and legal institutions. Among his many empirical studies are a sequence of eight analyses of violent assaults and robberies that is widely regarded as the factual foundation for modern firearms control, as well as empirical studies of sentencing behavior in homicide cases, studies of the selection process and impact of pretrial diversion programs in New York City, and a series of "sound-ings" in deterrence that range from bad check behavior in Nebraska to the influence of criminal prohibition on abortions in Hawaii. Zimring's work was first based at the University of Chicago where he directed the Center for Studies in Criminal Justice from 1973 to 1985. He came to Berkeley in 1985 as the Director of the Earl Warren Legal Institute and its program in criminal justice. Prior to moving to Berkeley, Zimring held the Llewellyn Chair in Jurisprudence at Chicago. His major books prior to Berkeley included Deterrence: The Legal Threat in Crime Control and The Changing World of Adolescence. Since coming to Berkeley, Zimring has focused on a series of studies of the relationship between social change and changes in the criminal law.Professor Zimring has served on the National Academy of Science Panel of Violence and as director of research of the Task Force on Violence of the National Commission on the Causes and Preventions of Violence. He has written extensively on issues of youth crime and sentencing policy, penal confinement and the restraint of crime, and gun and drug control policy. His book The Search for Rational Drug Control, (Oxford Univ Press, 1995) published in 1992, is a scholarly analysis of drug control policy process at a time when drug control has assumed central importance in American criminal law. Professor Zimring's major administrative responsibility at Berkeley is directing the Earl Warren Legal Institute, building it into a major laboratory for fact research on law. His teaching responsibilities are split between Boalt Hall, where he teaches family law and criminal law, and the Jurisprudence and Social Policy program, where he has created a course in juvenile justice and teaches a policy analysis course on the criminal justice system.

(1999). Crime and punishment in California: The impact of three strikes and you're out. Institute of Governmental Studies Press.(1999). Crime is Not the Problem : Lethal Violence in America. Oxford University Press.(1998). American Youth Violence. Oxford University Press.