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christhomas.bsky.social

@christhomas.bsky.social
2.5K followers 1.5K following 96 posts

Rutgers prof. Research: punishment & inequality, race, computational social science. Deep Springs, Columbia, CUNY alum.

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christhomas.bsky.social @christhomas.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
This summer I read some books that I liked. #summerreads #booksky
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christhomas.bsky.social @christhomas.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Yes! Shout out to the Philadelphia Inquirer @inquirer.com. Excellent independent reporting. I subscribe to the print edition, and reading it over coffee really is my favorite thing to do each morning.
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christhomas.bsky.social @christhomas.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
Excited to share new study in Criminology (open access) on GLP-1s & violence: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.... Among current GLP-1 users, the link b/t impulsivity and violence was flat across impulsivity levels. Similar story w/alcohol use. More to come from me & @daniel-semenza.bsky.social
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christhomas.bsky.social @christhomas.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
Thanks!
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christhomas.bsky.social @christhomas.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
Excited to share new study in Criminology (open access) on GLP-1s & violence: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.... Among current GLP-1 users, the link b/t impulsivity and violence was flat across impulsivity levels. Similar story w/alcohol use. More to come from me & @daniel-semenza.bsky.social
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Ana Lucia Araujo @araujohistorian.bsky.social · 12/11/2025
Holidays are here. History books about the truth of American history with discounts are the best gifts in these challenging times. Check my book Humans in Shackles: An Atlantic History of Slavery, 680 pages, and 40 % with code WELCOME 40 press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...
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christhomas.bsky.social @christhomas.bsky.social · 14/11/2025
Added! And cool article: doi.org/10.1017/lsi....
doi.org
The Shadow of the Law: Adversarial Formalism in Prisoner-Staff Relations | Law & Social Inquiry | Cambridge Core
The Shadow of the Law: Adversarial Formalism in Prisoner-Staff Relations - Volume 50 Issue 2
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christhomas.bsky.social @christhomas.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
Please also add/repost the second Starter Pack, which I made because so many great criminologists have joined bluesky lately that the first starter pack got full. As before, please reply if you'd like to be added -- I'll do my very best to include all CJ academics here. go.bsky.app/7qmM6yB
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Brett Rushforth @brettrushforth.bsky.social · 07/10/2025
Loved this book - congrats to Jack (and @yalepress.bsky.social)!
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christhomas.bsky.social @christhomas.bsky.social · 08/09/2025
Great assistant professor opportunity for crim/CJ folks, and I've heard it's a super collegial and cool department.
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Daniel Laurison @daniellaurison.bsky.social · 08/08/2025
Hi #ASA2025. I am not usually nervous about public speaking but I am about this - there are SO MANY things I want to make sure to say (or hope someone else will say) and things I'm really not sure what the answer is but I want us to be thinking about together. Hope to see many of you there.
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christhomas.bsky.social @christhomas.bsky.social · 08/08/2025
I'm excited to watch this online!
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christhomas.bsky.social @christhomas.bsky.social · 14/07/2025
Just rewatched Children of Men, and it hits really differently in 2025.
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Dan Semenza @daniel-semenza.bsky.social · 05/05/2025
The systems that have made America safer are under attack. My new op-ed in @commondreams.org explains why we can’t stay quiet as the Trump admin rapidly dismantles much of our violence prevention + public safety infrastructure. We can't go backward. www.commondreams.org/opinion/trum...
commondreams.org
America’s Safety Is Fragile; Trump Is Tearing Down the Systems That Protect It | Common Dreams
The systems that protect our lives and our communities were built through years of tireless effort. They can’t be allowed to collapse overnight.
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christhomas.bsky.social @christhomas.bsky.social · 21/03/2025
This looks awesome, can't wait to read (and very cool that it's open access!).
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Louise Seamster @louiseseamster.bsky.social · 06/02/2025
Is this a good time to remind everyone that Elon Musk is a longtermist? www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
screenshot of text from article: "Musk is unserious but is toying with dangerous ideologies nonetheless. He subscribes to “longtermism”, a muddled pseudo-philosophy that emerged from an amalgam of radical utilitarianism and “effective altruism”. It exhibits complete faith in the ability of technological and financial elites like Musk himself to re-engineer humanity, transcend corporeal limits, embrace other planets as homes and destinations, and surrender autonomy to elites instead of people. It’s fundamentally anti-democratic and anti-humanistic.

This goofy collection of dorm-room-bong-hit-level ideas is taken deeply seriously among the rich boys of Silicon Valley. While, like the libertarianism that intersects with it, longtermism is easy to dissect and dismiss, it is also dangerous because it’s so attractive to the rich and powerful. The short-term implications of longtermism include a tolerance, if not embrace, of chaos agents that might include antisemites, fascists, misogynists, tricksters and trolls.

Any group or force that can disrupt or distract serious thought about serious problems serves the cause of longtermism. If enough people resign from the public sphere and surrender their autonomy to technology, those who control that technology can guide us anywhere they want, regardless of the pain suffered along the way. The basic tenet of longtermism is something like: “As long as we can check out of this hotel room, we might as well trash it. We will build and own a better hotel in the long term.”

Or, as political scientist David Karpf put it, “from a longtermist perspective, it doesn’t matter if Tesla mistreats factory workers, or if Palantir lies about its predictive capabilities. What matters is that these ‘great men’, these hero-inventors, be encouraged and rewarded for their ambitions. They are extending the light of consciousness throughout the cosmos, warding off existential risks, providing bounteous gifts to the far-future of humanity.”
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Neil Lewis, Jr. @neillewisjr.bsky.social · 04/02/2025
"There are very good reasons that the federal faucet has always been controlled by apolitical bureaucrats. Having a president—or, even more so, an unelected billionaire—hold direct, granular control of nearly seven trillion dollars is power beyond the Founders’ wildest dreams."
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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 02/02/2025
I want to spell out the basic reason it’s so dangerous for Elon to have control of the U.S. payments system. It may seem like a technical matter, but the dynamics are simple. 1/x
nytimes.com
Elon Musk’s Team Now Has Access to Treasury’s Payments System
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent gave Mr. Musk’s representatives at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency a powerful tool to monitor and potentially limit government spending.
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christhomas.bsky.social @christhomas.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
Great question. Faculty unions across the country are coordinating this together (such as Rutgers' union, AAUP-AFT), but you definitely don't have to be in a union to participate. FWIW I've only gotten one email about it after I signed up, which included a zoom link and a reminder about the time.
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christhomas.bsky.social @christhomas.bsky.social · 08/01/2025
Wow, congratulations!
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christhomas.bsky.social @christhomas.bsky.social · 03/12/2024
Hi, Dallas -- added!
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christhomas.bsky.social @christhomas.bsky.social · 24/11/2024
Hi, thanks again for the work making and maintaining these, and if I could be added I would be very appreciative!
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christhomas.bsky.social @christhomas.bsky.social · 24/11/2024
Oh, super interesting special issue!
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christhomas.bsky.social @christhomas.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
Please also add/repost the second Starter Pack, which I made because so many great criminologists have joined bluesky lately that the first starter pack got full. As before, please reply if you'd like to be added -- I'll do my very best to include all CJ academics here. go.bsky.app/7qmM6yB
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christhomas.bsky.social @christhomas.bsky.social · 19/11/2024
Thank you for doing this -- I know these starter packs can be a lot of work to maintain. Could you add me to this one? :)
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christhomas.bsky.social @christhomas.bsky.social · 15/11/2024
Hi, thanks for sharing, and I hope folks find it useful. Btw, you're a member! (and your skeet makes me want to rewatch Duck Soup after ASC)
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christhomas.bsky.social @christhomas.bsky.social · 15/11/2024
Hi, you were already in the starter pack!
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christhomas.bsky.social @christhomas.bsky.social · 15/11/2024
Hi Chad, I really thought you were already in there. Fixed!
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christhomas.bsky.social @christhomas.bsky.social · 15/11/2024
Hi, you are already in the pack!
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christhomas.bsky.social @christhomas.bsky.social · 15/11/2024
Hi I thought I had added you, fixed that and just added you!
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christhomas.bsky.social @christhomas.bsky.social · 15/11/2024
Oh I really thought I had added you already, but just corrected that and added you!
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christhomas.bsky.social @christhomas.bsky.social · 15/11/2024
I started an academic criminologists/criminal justice scholars starter pack. This is an ongoing starter pack that I am still expanding, so please let me know if you'd like to be added (sorry for any omissions!), and please share if you find it useful. go.bsky.app/SL8dP7Z #ASC2024 #criminology
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christhomas.bsky.social @christhomas.bsky.social · 14/11/2024
Hi, awesome starter pack, and I'd love to be added!
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christhomas.bsky.social @christhomas.bsky.social · 14/11/2024
Hi, great starter pack, thanks for making it. I'm a computational social scientist and would love to be included!
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christhomas.bsky.social @christhomas.bsky.social · 13/11/2024
This book, and this authors-meet-critics panel, look great!
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christhomas.bsky.social @christhomas.bsky.social · 13/11/2024
I had missed her Stigma book, looks really great, thank you for the recommendation.
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christhomas.bsky.social @christhomas.bsky.social · 12/11/2024
Thanks!
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christhomas.bsky.social @christhomas.bsky.social · 12/11/2024
Those both sound great and weren't on my radar thank you!
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christhomas.bsky.social @christhomas.bsky.social · 12/11/2024
Thanks for making this. I'd love to be added to the list!
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christhomas.bsky.social @christhomas.bsky.social · 12/11/2024
Thank you for making this! So helpful. I would love to be added if possible. Thanks!
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Chris Uggen @chrisuggen.bsky.social · 23/01/2024
Survey experiment finds that people who rely on conservative news sources report much warmer feelings about police after seeing Floyd protest images — but not after seeing Capitol insurrection images. -Christopher Thomas @christhomas.bsky.social in J of Exptl Crim link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Figure 1 shows the predicted marginal effects of the Floyd Protest experiment on consumers of mainly conservative news compared to consumers of mainly non-conservative news.Figure 2 shows the predicted marginal effects of the second experiment on the Capitol insurrection on consumers of mainly conservative news compared to consumers of mainly non-conservative news.
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christhomas.bsky.social @christhomas.bsky.social · 23/01/2024
The link in the first post is to the sharable preprint, but here is the version of record in JEC (also free to read, but not download): rdcu.be/dwwUG This solo study was a labor of love, so please check it out and let me know what you think! (4/4)
rdcu.be
Racial reckoning protests, the Capitol insurrection, and asymmetric social facts: A mixed-methods st...
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christhomas.bsky.social @christhomas.bsky.social · 23/01/2024
In the study I explored *how* primary news environment shaped reactions to 2020 George Floyd protests and the Jan. 6 Capitol Insurrection. Among other things, I found asymmetric affective dynamics driven by the racialized anxiety of consumers of mainly conservative news. (3/4) 🌐 polisky #AcademicSky
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christhomas.bsky.social @christhomas.bsky.social · 23/01/2024
It's a mixed-methods study using both survey experiments and computational grounded theory content analysis (in which I combined automated inductive pattern analysis from structural topic modeling with hand-coded qualitative hermeneutic interpretation, a la @lauraknelson.bsky.social). (2/4) cssky 🌐🧪
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christhomas.bsky.social @christhomas.bsky.social · 23/01/2024
So excited to share my new J. of Experimental Criminology study "Racial reckoning protests, the Capitol insurrection and asymmetric social facts: A mixed-methods study of public opinion," based on national surveys I ran June 2020 and during Jan. 6th www.researchgate.net/publication/... 🌐#AcademicSky
researchgate.net
(PDF) Racial reckoning protests, the Capitol insurrection, and asymmetric social facts: A mixed-meth...
PDF | Objectives To test whether news images from George Floyd protests and the Capitol insurrection affected feelings about the police differentially... | Find, read and cite all the research you nee...
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christhomas.bsky.social @christhomas.bsky.social · 23/01/2024
The link in the first post is to the sharable preprint, but here is the version of record in JEC (which is also free to read but not download, with this link): rdcu.be/dwwUG This solo study was a labor of love, so please check it out and let me know what you think! (4/4)
rdcu.be
Racial reckoning protests, the Capitol insurrection, and asymmetric social facts: A mixed-methods st...
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christhomas.bsky.social @christhomas.bsky.social · 23/01/2024
In the study I explored *how* primary news environment shaped reactions to 2020 George Floyd protests and the Jan. 6 Capitol Insurrection. Among other things, I found asymmetric affective dynamics driven by the racialized anxiety of consumers of mainly conservative news. (3/n)
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christhomas.bsky.social @christhomas.bsky.social · 23/01/2024
It's a mixed-methods study using both survey experiments and computational grounded theory content analysis (in which I combined automated inductive pattern analysis from structural topic modeling with hand-coded qualitative hermeneutic interpretation, a la @lauraknelson.bsky.social) (2/n)
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christhomas.bsky.social @christhomas.bsky.social · 31/12/2023
Thanks and happy new year!
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christhomas.bsky.social @christhomas.bsky.social · 31/12/2023
Oh cool -- just checked, and it is on the TCM app, so it is officially on our playlist today. Looking forward to watching it, and hope you two have fun watching it later!
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