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USC University of Southern California

Innovating Gang Violence Prevention with Qualitative Analysis and Natural Language Processing Tools

Lecture: Dr. Desmond Patton

Sponsor:
Center for Artificial Intelligence in Society
 Cost:
Free
Details:

Please join the Center for Artificial Intelligence in Society in Mudd Hall room 101 on Monday, April 10th from 12:30-1:30 p.m. for a guest lecture by Dr. Desmond Patton from the Columbia School of Social Work.

Titled "Innovating Gang Violence Prevention with Qualitative Analysis and Natural Language Processing Tools," the lecture from Dr. Patton will include findings from his research study utilizing qualitative analysis, and natural language processing and machine learning (AI tools) from social media to prevent gang violence.

Firearm violence continues to be a serious public health problem in the United States. Recent research indicates that victimization and perpetration of firearm violence are exacerbated by social media use and the formation of the “digital street” where youth experiences with violence inform aggressive and threatening content that escalates on social media and leads to retaliation, or Internet banging. Violence prevention and intervention strategies, however, exclude social media as a risk factor, and there are few tools available to community-based organizations for early detection of social media content that may be threatening.

Dr. Patton will address this critical gap, present his prototype study in which his research team developed a natural language processing (NLP) system, using a small Twitter dataset from a deceased gang member from Chicago. It integrates qualitative analysis and machine learning to automatically identify Internet banging. He will discuss implications for reducing firearm violence using social media.

Dr. Patton is an assistant professor at the Columbia School of Social Work and a Faculty Affiliate of the Social Intervention Group (SIG) and the Data Science Institute. His research utilizes qualitative and computational data collection methods to examine how and why youth and gang violence, trauma, grief and identity are expressed on social media and the real world impact they have on well-being for low-income youth of color.

Cookies and coffee will be served.

Questions should be directed to Hailey at hwinetro@usc.edu