Academic Profile

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Thiago R. Oliveira

Research Fellow and Postdoctoral Researcher, Centre for Social Investigation

Research Interests: Criminology, Quantitative Methods, Policing, Legitimacy of the Law.

Thiago R. Oliveira is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Centre for Social Investigation and a Research Fellow at Nuffield College. He received his Ph.D. in Social Research Methods from the London School of Economics and Political Science in 2021. At Nuffield, Thiago works with Dave Kirk on a project focused on gun violence in the United States. They are investigating some long-term consequences of exposure to police brutality and gun violence during the life course, as well as the reciprocal relationship between police brutality and gun proliferation in Chicago.

Thiago is a quantitative social scientist working on topics related to criminology and sociology. He is curious about the consequences of police misconduct and aggressive policing strategies, particularly in terms of people’s relationship with the law and the legal institutions. Overall, he uses panel survey data and other kinds of data to investigate the extent to which people lose faith in legal authority when they are repeatedly exposed to police brutality and injustice, especially in high-crime contexts, and is specifically motivated to explore the degree to which this relationship is causal. Topics in which he is particularly interested include the legitimacy of the law and the legal institutions, overpolicing and underpolicing, procedural justice theory and legal cynicism, police stops and aggressive policing strategies, legal socialisation, exposure to (neighbourhood and police) violence, neighbourhood effects, and criminal justice policy. In some previous and ongoing studies, he used longitudinal survey data to investigate the extent to which police misconduct shaped public attitudes towards legal authority, with particular focus on high-crime contexts such as the city of São Paulo, Brazil. Thiago is also very interested in quantitative research methods, especially longitudinal data analysis, causal inference with observational data, measurement, multilevel modelling, spatial data models, and R programming. Thiago's work has apperead in venues such as the Journal of Quantitative Criminology and Law & Society Review.

Publications

Peer-Reviewed Papers

  • Jackson, Jonathan, Krisztián Pósch, Thiago R. Oliveira, Ben Bradford, Silvia Camões, Ariadne Natal, & André Zanetic. Conditional accept. "Fear and Legitimacy in São Paulo, Brazil: Police-Citizen Relations in a High Violence, High Fear City." Law & Society Review. https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/3awrz/

  • Oliveira, Thiago R., Jonathan Jackson, Kristina Murphy, & Ben Bradford. 2020. "Are Trustworthiness and Legitimacy 'Hard to Win, Easy to Lose'?  A Longitudinal Test of the Asymmetry Thesis of Police-Citizen Contact." Journal of Quantitative Criminology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10940-020-09478-2

  • Jackson, Jonathan, Ian Bruton-Smith, Ben Bradford, Thiago R. Oliveira, Krisztián Pósch, & Patrick Sturgis. 2021. "Police Legitimacy and the Norm to Cooperate: Using a Mixed Effects Location-Scale Model to Estimate the Strength of Social Norms at a Small Spatial Scale." Journal of Quantitative Criminology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10940-020-09467-5

  • Oliveira, Thiago R. 2019. "Juvenile Sentencing: A Mixed-Methods Approach." Brazilian Political Science Review. https://doi.org/10.1590/1981-3821201900010006

Working Papers

  • Oliveira, Thiago R. "Violence and Coercive Policing: Dynamics and Consequences of the Overpolicing-Underpolicing Paradox in Brazil's Largest City." Preprint available at SocArXiv.
    Asked to revise and resubmit, American Journal of Sociology.

  • Oliveira, Thiago R. "The Upshots of Aggressive Policing: Assessing the Impact of Police Stops at Gunpoint on Police Trustworthiness." Preprint available at SocArXiv.

  • Oliveira, Thiago R., & Jonathan Jackson. "Legitimacy and Legitimation: A Conceptual Clarification."

  • Oliveira, Thiago R., Jonathan Jackson, Renan Theodoro, Debora Piccirillo, & Rick Trinkner. "Socialization Through Violence: Exposure to Neighborhood and Police Violence and the Development of Legal Legitimacy among Adolescents in São Paulo."

  • Suss, Joel, & Thiago R. Oliveira. "Economic Inequality and the Spatial Distribution of Stops and Searches: Evidence from London."

Peer-reviewed Papers in Portuguese

  • Oliveira, Thiago R., André Zanetic, & Ariadne Natal. 2020. "Preditores e Impactos da Legitimidade Policial: Testando a Teoria da Justeza Procedimental em São Paulo." Dados - Revista de Ciências Sociais. https://doi.org/10.1590/001152582020197
    (Predictors and Impacts of Police Legitimacy: Testing the Procedural Justice Theory in São Paulo)

  • Oliveira, Thiago R., André Rodrigues de Oliveira, & Sergio Adorno. 2019. "Legitimidade Policial: Um Modelo de Mensuração." Revista Brasileira de Ciências Sociais. https://doi.org/10.1590/3410007/2019
    (Police Legitimacy: A Measurement Model)

  • Oliveira, Thiago R. 2017. "Mecanismos Sociais de Decisões Judiciais: Um Desenho Misto Explicativo sobre a Aplicação da Medida Socioeducativa de Internação." Revista Brasileira de Sociologia. https://doi.org/10.20336/rbs.205
    (Social Mechanisms of Judicial Decisions: An Explanatory Mixed-Methods Research Design on Juvenile Sentencing)

  • Oliveira, Thiago R. 2017. "Oitivas Cerimoniais: Relatos Descritivos do Sistema de Justiça Juvenil Paulistano." Confluências - Revista Interdisciplinar de Sociologia e Direito. https://doi.org/10.22409/conflu18i3.p476
    (Ceremonial Hearings: Descriptive Reports of the Juvenile Justice System in São Paulo)

  • Zanetic, André, Bruno Paes Manso, Ariadne Natal, & Thiago R. Oliveira. 2016. "Legitimidade da Polícia: Segurança Pública para além da Dissuasão." Civitas - Revista de Ciências Sociais. https://doi.org/10.15448/1984-7289.2016.4.24183
    (Police Legitimacy: Criminal Policy beyond Deterrence)