Christopher S. Koper is the Director of Research for the Police Executive Research Forum

Police Executive Research Forum

The Police Executive Research Forum is a national membership organization of police executives from the largest city, county and state law enforcement agencies, primarily in the United States. The organization is dedicated to improving policing and advancing professionalism through research and...

 (PERF), a police membership and research organization based in Washington, D.C. He holds a Ph.D. in criminology and criminal justice from the University of Maryland and has over 20 years of experience conducting criminological research at PERF, the University of Pennsylvania, the Urban Institute, the RAND Corporation, the Police Foundation, and other organizations, where he has written and published extensively on issues relating to firearms, policing, research methods, federal crime prevention efforts, juvenile delinquency, and other topics. Dr. Koper is also a research associate of the Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy at George Mason University and a former scholar-in-residence of the Firearm and Injury Center at Penn (a center of the University of Pennsylvania Health System).

Previously a research criminologist

Criminology

Criminology is the scientific study of the nature, extent, causes, and control of criminal behavior in both the individual and in society...

 at the University of Pennsylvania

University of Pennsylvania

The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...

's Jerry Lee Center of Criminology and the Firearm and Injury Center, Koper specialized in research pertaining to firearm

Firearm

A firearm is a weapon that launches one, or many, projectile at high velocity through confined burning of a propellant. This subsonic burning process is technically known as deflagration, as opposed to supersonic combustion known as a detonation. In older firearms, the propellant was typically...

s and gun violence

Gun violence in the United States

Gun violence in the United States is an intensely debated political issue in the United States. Gun-related violence is most common in poor urban areas and in conjunction with gang violence, often involving juveniles or young adults...

, policing, research and statistical

Statistics

Statistics is the study of the collection, organization, analysis, and interpretation of data. It deals with all aspects of this, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments....

 methodology, and white-collar crime

White-collar crime

Within the field of criminology, white-collar crime has been defined by Edwin Sutherland as "a crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation" . Sutherland was a proponent of Symbolic Interactionism, and believed that criminal behavior was...

. Koper has also evaluated

Evaluation

Evaluation is systematic determination of merit, worth, and significance of something or someone using criteria against a set of standards.Evaluation often is used to characterize and appraise subjects of interest in a wide range of human enterprises, including the arts, criminal justice,...

 federal laws and programs, including the Federal Assault Weapons Ban

Federal assault weapons ban

The Federal Assault Weapons Ban was a subtitle of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, a federal law in the United States that included a prohibition on the manufacture for civilian use of certain semi-automatic firearms, so called "assault weapons"...

, and the Community Oriented Policing Services

Community Oriented Policing Services

The Office of Community Oriented Policing Services is an agency within the United States Department of Justice. COPS was established through a provision in the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. Since 1994, COPS has provided $11.3 billion in assistance to state and local law...

(COPS) program.

Koper has also worked at the Urban Institute

Urban Institute

The Urban Institute is a Washington, D.C.-based think tank that carries out nonpartisan economic and social policy research, collects data, evaluates social programs, educates the public on key domestic issues, and provides advice and technical assistance to developing governments abroad...

, the Crime Control Institute, the National Institute of Justice

National Institute of Justice

The National Institute of Justice is the research, development and evaluation agency of the United States Department of Justice. NIJ, along with the Bureau of Justice Statistics , Bureau of Justice Assistance , Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention , Office for Victims of Crime ,...

, the Police Foundation

Police Foundation

The Police Foundation, of Washington, DC, is a non-profit foundation dedicated to helping the police be more effective in doing their job. It was founded on July 22, 1970 by the Ford Foundation, and has continued to receive its primary support from that foundation, although it now has a large...

, and at the University of Maryland

University of Maryland, College Park

The University of Maryland, College Park is a top-ranked public research university located in the city of College Park in Prince George's County, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C...

.