Byunggu Kang’s research while affiliated with Albany State University and other places

This study examines the relationship between designated Mental Health Professional Shortage Areas (MH HPSAs) and mental health-related 911 calls in New York City. Negative binomial regression models were used to estimate the relationship between MH HPSAs and MH 911 calls after adjusting for the population size and other neighborhood characteristics. The study found that neighborhoods designated as MH HPSAs had higher MH 911 calls compared to non-shortage areas, with a 27% increase in expected MH 911 calls after adjustment. Moreover, the results indicated that neighborhoods with higher rates of homelessness and poverty generated more MH 911 calls. The findings suggest a need to improve access to mental health services to reduce the burden on police and emergency services for crisis interventions in areas with limited resources.

The age–crime curve has been regarded as a stylized fact of the age–crime relationship. However, recent studies have found that some Asian countries have an age–crime distribution that deviates from the archetypal age–crime curve. This variation has been attributed to cultural factors associated with age effects. Using age-specific arrest data from Korea for the years 1976 through 2019, this study offers a complementary explanation of divergent age–crime patterns across countries. We make an empirical case that the observed difference between the Korean age–crime distribution and the archetypical age–crime curve in Western countries cannot be due to contextual influence on age effects alone. The age–crime relationship in Korea shows both static and dynamic characteristics. The age–period–cohort analysis of variance shows that age effects largely explain the age–crime relationship, but period and cohort effects also explain the change in the age–crime relationship over time. Moreover, the extent to which each effect manifests depends on the type of crime. Based on our findings, we propose hypotheses regarding the role of social context in shaping each effect. We suggest that cultural factors largely shaped age effects by creating age-graded changes in the social control mechanism and in routine activities. In addition, we suggest that other contextual factors, such as population dynamics, simultaneously shaped period and cohort effects by changing the level of social control, and routine activities across birth cohorts. Both cultural and historical dimensions of social context are required to understand divergent age–crime patterns across countries.

Objectives We examine public attitudes towards false positives and false negatives in criminal justice risk assessment and how people’s choices differ in varying offenses and stages. Methods We use data from a factorial survey experiment conducted with a sample of 575 Americans. Respondents were randomly assigned to different conditions in the vignette for the criminal justice process and the offense severity and were asked to choose the cost ratio. Results While people prefer the cost ratio with higher false positives, the degree to which they accept false positives is lower than the cost ratios of existing risk assessments. The offense severity impacts people’s acceptance of false positives. Meanwhile, numeracy influences people’s decisions on the cost ratio. Conclusions To our knowledge, this is the first study to investigate public opinion on the cost ratio in risk assessments. We suggest that public opinion on the cost ratio can be an alternative way to find the ideal cost ratio.