Frank Edwards

Frank Edwards studies fatal police violence and how the politics of Black exploitation and Native elimination jointly structure the operation of U.S. social policy systems. He earned his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Washington.

Publications:

• Edwards, Frank R., Sarah Roberts, Mical Raz, Kathleen Kenny, Matty Lichtenstein, and Mishka Terplan. 2023. “Medical professional reports and child welfare system infant investigations: an analysis of National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS) data”. Health Equity. 

• Edwards, Frank R., Kelley Fong, Victoria Copeland, Mical Raz, and Alan Dettlaff. 2023. “Administrative Burdens in Child Welfare”. The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of The Social Sciences. 

• Edwards, Frank R., Theresa Rocha Beardall, and Hannah Curtis. 2023. “American Indian and Alaska Native overexposure to foster care and family surveillance in the US: a quantitative overview of contemporary system contact”. Children and Youth Services Review 

Previous Organizations: 

• The University of Washington 

• Cornell University 

• New Jersey Department of Children and Families

Accomplishments:

• Grantee - “The durable impacts of historical racial institutions on contemporary family policing”. Rutgers Center for Politics and Race in America. 2023.

• “Understanding sources of American Indian and Alaska Native inequality in child welfare system outcomes”. Casey Family Programs. Role: PI with Theresa Rocha-Beardall. 2022.

• “Guaranteed Income Experiment: Child Protection Outcomes.” Redlich Horwitz Foundation. Role: Co-I with Zoe Bouchelle; Amy Castro and Stacia West PI. 2022-2025

My work explores the causes and consequences of the social distribution of state violence. One set of projects draws attention to child protection systems as key sites of state violence and racial stratification. This work shows that American child protection systems are tightly intertwined with carceral and welfare policy systems, and that racism and settler colonialism play a central role in explaining the spatial and social distribution of family separation. A second set of projects uses novel data and methods to provide detailed statistical analyses of the prevalence and distribution of police violence in the US.