Biography

Dr. Charles M. Katz is the Watts Endowed Family Chair and Director of the Center for Violence Prevention and Community Safety at Arizona State University. Although this website focuses on his international work, his broader portfolio spans substantial domestic and international research, evaluation, and advisory work. Across these settings, his work centers on helping governments, public safety agencies, and communities diagnose violence and public safety problems, identify the conditions that sustain them, and strengthen the capacity to respond through practical, evidence-informed strategies.

Over more than three decades, Dr. Katz has worked across the United States, Latin America, and the Caribbean on issues including gangs, violence prevention, youth risk and resilience, crime analysis, police effectiveness, and program evaluation. His work has included gang intervention and prevention, crime analysis and data-system development, body-worn camera and policing research, violence reduction strategies, and evaluations of public safety and prevention initiatives. He has served as principal investigator or lead researcher on projects supported by organizations such as USAID, DOJ, and DHS.

Open Access Mission

Many academics, policymakers, and practitioners not located in the United States often have difficulty accessing peer-reviewed research and reports behind paywalls. This website was created to provide open access to manuscripts, reports, academic presentations, and invited talks, particularly those focused on work in the Caribbean and Latin America. All content is freely available for download.

International Impact

For more than two decades, Dr. Katz’s work in Latin America and the Caribbean has centered on understanding, diagnosing, and reducing violence in some of the Western Hemisphere’s most difficult security environments. In partnership with governments, international organizations, and local stakeholders, he has led major research and evaluation efforts in El Salvador, Honduras, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and the Eastern Caribbean aimed at identifying the drivers of violence and building more effective responses.

Throughout this work, he has used rigorous research designs to produce evidence that can directly inform policy and practice in high-violence settings. His projects have drawn on randomized controlled trials, risk assessment validation techniques, interviews with active offenders, and time-series analysis to support more effective violence prevention and public safety strategies.