The Psychology and Epidemiology of cRime and Safety perceptiONS (PERSONS) research lab, led by Dr. Carolyn Côté-Lussier, is dedicated to the study of public perceptions of crime and safety, and of the ways in which these perceptions are associated with attitudes, policy preferences, emotional and behavioral responses, health and quality of life outcomes. 

Find out more about student bursaries and research opportunities in criminology, urban studies and population studies in Montreal, Canada. Find out more about our people here. Or even better, get in touch with us.

Read more about our research below.

Safety and public health

Socioecological models have been lauded as the preferred twenty-first century approach to public health. A socioecological approach considers the complex and dynamic interactions between individuals and their physical and sociocultural surroundings. These interactive models link neighborhood environments to poorer health through direct (e.g., exposure to toxic environments) and mediated risk exposures. This mediated component refers in part to the impact of environmental neighborhood features on health through individuals' perceptions of their environment.

This stream of research aims to identify the role of indicators of objective and subjective neighborhood safety in determining population-level physical and mental health. We ask questions such as: What built (e.g., traffic, lighting, greenery), and social (e.g., indicators of disorder, indicators of social inequality) neighborhood features contribute to adult and child perceptions of safety? Is greater perceived safety associated with improved mental (e.g., psychosocial distress) and physical (e.g., obesity) health outcomes? To what extent do differences in perceived safety help explain inequality-based health disparities?

This stream of research also aims to contribute to methodological innovations in the measurement of neighbourhood features and public responses to those features. For instance, we have used remote sensing to develop novel measures of intra-urban variation in night-time light. Other ongoing projects draw on public participatory geographic information systems (PPGIS) and volunteered geographic information (VGI) and psychophysiological measures of emotion (e.g., facial electromyography).

The findings of this research will contribute to identifying targets for interventions designed to improve safety, perceptions of safety and public health. 

ONGOING PROJECTS

2021-2022

Nominated principal investigator. (Co-PI: C., Daniel, M.; Co-Investigators: Barnett, T., Benhadjoudja, L., Bradford, B., Carmichael, J., Kakinami, L., Kennedy-Turner, K., Knudby, A., Tabri., N.) Assessing the broad impacts of neighbourhood crime on the mental health of marginalized and vulnerable populations. (Funding agency: Canadian Institutes of Health Research; Funding awarded: $60,000).

2020-2022

Principal investigator. Emotion in the city: A comparative analysis of emotion measurement methods for real-time prediction of policy and urban environment preferences. (Funding agency: Fonds de recherche du Québec - Société et culture; Funding awarded: $45,000).

2019-2021

Principal investigator. Une image plus juste du vécu des populations vulnérables et marginalisées de Montréal quant au crime et la sécurité publique. (Funding agency: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada; Funding awarded: $3,000)

2015-2021   

Co-Investigator (Principal Investigators: Barnett T.A., McGrath, J.J.; Co-Investigators: Chaix, B., Datta, G., Henderson, M., Kesten, Y., Mathieu, M.-È., Van Hulst, A.). Neighborhood environment and obesity in youth: Investigating nocturnal and diurnal pathways. (Funding agency: Canadian Institutes of Health Research; Funding awarded: $444,820).

COMPLETED PROJECTS

2021 - 2023

Principal Investigator. (Co-Investigators: Bradford, B., Carmichael, J., Cloutier, M.-S., Kakinami, L., Lashley, M.). STOPMTL.ca : A participatory mapping project of police stop experiences in Montreal, Québec.

Un portrait descriptif des expériences d’interpellations policières à Montréal colligées sur STOPMTL.ca (Funding Agency: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada – Institutional award; $3,000).

2014-2016        

Co-Investigator (Principal Investigator: Yan Kestens; Co-Investigators: Drouin, L., Lussier, L., Sauvé, L.). Revitalisation commerciale et du verdissement Pascal /Lapierre : Processus et impacts. (Funding Agency: Direction de la Santé Publique de Montréal; Total awarded: $20,000).

2015-2017        

Co-Principal Investigator (Co-P.I.: Anders Jensen Knudby). Use of ISS photos for measurement of night time lighting. University of Ottawa, Faculty of Arts Special Projects Funding Program ($4,973.00). 

Collaborators

SPatial HEalth REsearch (SPHERE) Lab

QUebec Adipose and Lifestyle InvesTigation in Youth (QUALITY) Study

Reports

Côté-Lussier, C., Bradford, B., Carmichael, J., Cloutier, M. S., Kakinami, L., Kapo, L. T., & Lashley, M. (2023). STOPMTL. ca: Preliminary report, 2023. Download. /STOPMTL.ca: Rapport préliminaire. Télécharger.

Key publications

Kennedy-Turner, K., Côté-Lussier, C., & Helly, D. (2023). A Snapshot of Hate: Subjective Psychological Distress After a Hate Crime: An Exploratory Study on Victimization of Muslims in Canada. Journal of Muslim Mental Health, 17(1).

Côté-Lussier, C., Knudby, A., & Barnett, T. (2020). A novel low-cost method for assessing intra-urban variation in night time light and applications to public health. Social Science & Medicine.

Côté-Lussier, C., Kakinami, L. & Danieles, P. (2019). Ego-centered relative neighborhood deprivation and reported dietary habits among youth. Appetite, 132, 267-274. 3.

Xu, Y., Knudby, A., & Côté-Lussier, C. (2018). Mapping ambient light at night using field observations and high-resolution remote sensing imagery for studies of urban environments. Building and Environment, 145, 104-114.

Côté-Lussier, C. & Fitzpatrick, C. (2016). Feelings of safety at school, socioemotional functioning, and classroom engagement. Journal of Adolescent Health. doi:10.1016/j.jadohealth.2016.01.003 

Côté-Lussier, C., Fitzpatrick, C., Séguin, L., & Barnett, T. A. (2015). Poor, unsafe, and overweight: The role of feeling unsafe at school in mediating the association among poverty exposure, youth screen time, physical activity, and weight status. American Journal of Epidemiology, 182(1), 67-79. doi: 10.1093/aje/kwv005

Cote-Lussier, C., Mathieu, M. E., & Barnett, T. A. (2015). Independent associations between child and parent perceived neighborhood safety, child screen time, physical activity and BMI: a structural equation modeling approach. International Journal of Obesity. doi: 10.1038/ijo.2015.98

Côté-Lussier, C., Jackson, J., Kestens, Y., Henderson, M., & Barnett, T. (2014). A child’s view: Social and physical environmental features differentially predict parent and child perceived neighborhood safety. Journal of Urban Health, 92(1), 10-23. doi: 10.1007/s11524-014-9917-0

Côté-Lussier, C., Barnett, T. A., Kestens, Y., Tu, M. T., & Séguin, L. (2014). The role of the residential neighborhood in linking youths’ family poverty trajectory to decreased feelings of safety at school. Journal of Youth and Adolescence. 

Social and criminal stereotypes

Criminal stereotypes

While punishment of crime is for all intents and purposes qualitatively milder than it was only a few hundred years ago, the latter half of the 20th and beginning of the 21st century has seen the introduction of increasingly harsh criminal justice policies in countries such as the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. Some evidence suggests that this long-term increase in punitiveness is partly the result of public support for harsher criminal justice policies.

This stream of research draws on the Stereotype Content Model, a theoretical framework that identifies links between social structural factors and social stereotypes, to identify how criminal stereotypes may lead the public to be more punitive. We ask questions such as: Do social structural factors explain criminal stereotypes? How do these stereotypes contribute to emotional and behavioral responses toward crime and criminals as a social group? To what extent is endorsing criminal stereotypes associated with supporting harsh criminal justice policy?

We hope that this research will sensitize decision-makers to the social structural factors contributing to public attitudes toward crime, and contribute to the implementation of balanced criminal justice policy. 

Policy brief

Public opinion about crime and punishment: Reducing social and cultural biases against criminalized individuals. Download.

Note politique

L’opinion publique sur le crime et la justice pénale : Réduire les préjugés sociaux et culturels à l’encontre des personnes criminalisées. Télécharger.

Key publications

Côté-Lussier, C., & David, J. D. (2023). The role of intuition in expressing support for harsh criminal justice policy. International Criminology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43576-023-00106-0 (download here)

Côté-Lussier, C., & David, J. D. (2023). Intuitive anger in the context of crime and punishment. Psychology, Crime & Law, 29(5), 465-487.

Côté-Lussier, C., Hohl, K. & David, J-D. (2020). ‘Disadvantage, Crime and Law’, in Côté-Lussier, C., Moffette, D. & Piché, J. (eds.) Contemporary Criminological Issues: Moving Beyond Insecurity and Exclusion. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press.

Côté-Lussier, C. (2015). The functional relation between social inequality, criminal stereotypes, and public attitudes toward punishment of crime. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/law0000073.

Côté-Lussier, C. (2013). Fight fire with fire: The effect of perceived anger on punitive intuitions. Emotion, 13(6), 999. 

Ongoing projects

2023-2024

Principal investigator. (Co-Investigators: Piché, J., Walby, K.). Shaping Meanings of Confinement in Prison Tourism: Exhibit Curation, Self-Guided Tours and Visitor Engagement at the Peel Art Gallery Museum and Archives, (Funding agency: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada; Funding awarded: $25,000)

2018-2021

Co-investigator. (PI: Piché, J.; Co-Investigators: Walby, K. & Côté-Lussier, C.). Making Meaning Out of Punishment: Exhibit Curation, Tour Guide Work and Visitor Engagement at the Ottawa Jail Hostel. (Funding agency: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada; Funding awarded: $24,990)

2017-2021

Principal Investigator. Emotion, intuition and public support for harsh criminal justice policy. (Funding agency: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada; Funding awarded: $50,763).

2017-2020 

Co-investigator (PI: Leclerc, C.; Co-applicants: Bérard, J., Blais, É., Vacheret, M.). Les pratiques pénales au Canada : vers un virage punitif des tribunaux? (Funding agency: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada; Funding awarded: $147,835)

Social stereotypes

We draw on the same theoretical framework to investigate the association between stereotypes linked to social status and inequalities, to explain inequities in well-being and health (e.g.,  academic adjustment and attainment outcomes).

We expect this research to guide interventions targeting social inequality, and social status-related biases leading to disparities in health, well-being and quality of life.  

KEY PUBLICATIONS

Fitzpatrick, C., Côté-Lussier, C., & Blair, C. (2016). Dressed and groomed for success in elementary school: Student appearance and academic adjustment. The Elementary School Journal, 117(1), 30-45. https://doi.org/10.1086/687753 

Fitzpatrick, C., Côté-Lussier, C., Pagani, L. S., & Blair, C. (2013). I don’t think you like me very much: Child minority status and disadvantage predict relationship quality with teachers. Youth & Society, 47(5), 727-43, https://doi.org/10.1177/0044118X13508962

Morality, ideology and political preferences

Ideological systems are seen as being at the heart of left-right cleavages in political preferences. From an ideological standpoint, policy preferences are explained in part by differences in preferences for tradition, submission to authority and hierarchical as opposed to equal group relations. These preferences are well subsumed by two ideological systems: Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) and Social Dominance Orientation (SDO). A secondary but less investigated view is that individuals' moral systems may also be a source of divergence in left-right political cleavages. From support for biotechnology to the success of social policies, individuals’ morality is front and centre in predicting political preferences and attitudes.

This stream of research aims to identify the ideological and moral underpinnings of policy preferences and attitudes in the context of crime. We apply leading theoretical frameworks to answer questions such as: To what extent do ideological and moral systems overlap? Does one system precede the other? Do both systems contribute to explaining policy preferences (e.g., support for harsh criminal justice policy?)

We hope that this research will contribute to theoretical developments in the field of political psychology. Furthermore, this research will sensitize decision-makers to the factors contributing to individuals' policy preferences, and contribute to the implementation of balanced social policy. 

Key publications

Côté‐Lussier, C., Walby, K., & Piché, J. (2022). COVID‐19 and views of imprisonment in a sample of prison tourists. Canadian Review of Sociology/Revue canadienne de sociologie, 59(3), 412-426.

Côté-Lussier, C., Moffette, D. & Piché, J. (eds.) (2020). Contemporary Criminological Issues: Moving Beyond Insecurity and Exclusion (EN) (Download)/ Enjeux criminologiques contemporains :  Au-delà de l’insécurité et de l’exclusion (Télécharger). Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press.

Côté-Lussier, C. & Carmichael, J. T. (i2017). Public support for harsh criminal justice policy and its moral and ideological tides. Psychology, Public Policy and Law.

Jackson, J., Gerber, M. M., & Côté-Lussier, C. (2011). Ideological Roots of Fear of Crime and Punitive Sentiment in Greece and the UK: A Commentary on Cheliotis & Xenakis. In L. Cheliotis & S. Xenakis (Eds.), Crime and Punishment in Contemporary Greece: International Comparative Perspective: Peter Lang.