Translational
Criminology
THE MAGAZINE OF THE CENTER FOR EVIDENCE-BASED CRIME POLICY, GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY
FALL 2018
Inside this issue…
From the Directors
The 2018 CEBCP Symposium
Policy Responses to a High Prole School Tragedy
Washington/Baltimore High Intensity Drug Trafcking
Areas Program Joins George Mason University’s
Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy
A Primer on Criminal Justice Risk Assessments
Utilizing Data and Science to Reduce Serious Injury
and Fatality Crashes on Rural Roadways
50 Years Later: The Kerner Commission Legacy
Marking the 50th Anniversary of
President Johnson’s Crime Commission
The Distinguished Achievement Award
in Evidence-Based Crime Policy 2018 Recipients
2018 Evidence-Based Policing Hall of Fame Inductees
Translating Science in Film: The Science
& Entertainment Exchange of the National
Academy of Sciences
Proactive Policing’s Effects on Crime and Communities
BetaGov Supports Practitioners and Evaluators
in Conducting Randomized Control Trials
to Test Criminal Justice Programs
Fresh Off the Press
Promoting knowledge exchange to shape criminal justice research,
practice, and policy
Staff
Executive Director: David Weisburd
Director and Editor of TC: Cynthia Lum
Deputy Director: Charlotte Gill
Principal CEBCP Fellow: Christopher Koper
Senior Fellows: Je Beeson, Henry Brownstein, James
Bueermann, James Burch, Tom Carr, Guoqing Diao, Beidi
Dong, Stephen Mastrofski, Linda Merola, Anthony Petrosino,
Allison Redlich, Laurie Robinson, Nigel Waters, James Willis,
David Wilson, Sue-Ming Yang
Post-Doctorates and Research Associates: Amber Scherer
(HIDTA-GMU), Zoe Vitter
Research Assistants: Meghan Ballard, Tori Goldberg, Michael
Goodier, Rachel Jensen, William Johnson, L. Caitlin
Kanewske, Yi-Fang Lu, Matthew Nelson, Jordan Nichols,
Sang Jun Park, Kevin Petersen, Heather Prince, Megan Stoltz,
Sean Wire, Xiaoyun Wu, Taryn Zastrow
Executive Assistant and Oce Manager: Naida Kuruvilla
Aliated Scholars: Martin Andresen (Simon Fraser University),
Breanne Cave (Police Foundation), Julie Grieco (Police
Foundation), Elizabeth Gro (Temple University), Julie
Hibdon (Southern Illinois University), Joshua Hinkle (Georgia
State University), Brian Lawton (CUNY, John Jay), Ajima
Olaghere (Temple University), Travis Taniguchi (RTI),
Gheorghe Tecuci (George Mason University), Cody Telep
(Arizona State University), Clair White (University
of Wyoming), Alese Wooditch (Temple University)
Research Programs
Crime and Place
Evidence-Based Policing
Systematic Reviews
Criminal Justice Policy
Advisory Board
Chair: Peter Neyroud, Cambridge University
Robert Boruch, University of Pennsylvania
Gerben Bruinsma, Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime
and Law Enforcement
James Bueermann, e Police Foundation
Edward Flynn (retired) Chief, Milwaukee Police Department
Cathy Lanier, Metropolitan Police Department, Washington, D.C.
Jerry Lee, Jerry Lee Center of Criminology, University of
Pennsylvania
Friedrich Lösel, Emeritus, Cambridge University
Bernard Melekian, Former Director of the Oce of Community-
Oriented Policing Services
Daniel Nagin, Carnegie Mellon University
Denise O’Donnell, Leadership for Justice Innovation
Kathleen O’Toole, Seattle Police Department
Laurie O. Robinson, George Mason University
Lawrence Sherman, University of Maryland and Cambridge
University
Darrel Stephens, Major City Chiefs Association
Christy Visher, University of Delaware
Hubert Williams (retired), e Police Foundation
CEBCP Mission Statement
TheCenter for Evidence-Based Crime Policy (CEBCP), housed within the Department of Criminology, Law and Society at George
Mason University, seeks to make scientic research a key component in decisions about crime and justice policies by advancing
rigorous studies in criminal justice and criminology through research–practice collaborations and proactively serving as an infor-
mational link to practitioners and the policy community. Translational Criminology advances this mission by illustrating examples
of how research is converted into criminal justice practice.
CONTACT US
Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy
George Mason University
Research Hall, Rooms 310-318
4400 University Drive, MS 6D12
Fairfax, Virginia 22030
Website: www.cebcp.org
Email: [email protected]
Twitter
: @cebcp
YouTube: clsmason
Promoting knowledge exchange to shape criminal justice research,
practice, and policy
Translational
Criminology
FALL 2018
From the Directors ...............................................1
The 2018 CEBCP Symposium .....................................2
Policy Responses to a High Prole School Tragedy.....................4
Washington/Baltimore High Intensity Drug Trafcking Areas Program Joins
George Mason University’s Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy.......7
A Primer on Criminal Justice Risk Assessments .......................8
Utilizing Data and Science to Reduce Serious Injury
and Fatality Crashes on Rural Roadways ............................12
50 Years Later: The Kerner Commission Legacy ......................14
Marking the 50th Anniversary of President Johnson’s Crime Commission ..17
The Distinguished Achievement Award in Evidence-Based
Crime Policy 2018 Recipients .....................................19
2018 Evidence-Based Policing Hall of Fame Inductees.................22
Translating Science in Film: The Science & Entertainment
Exchange of the National Academy of Sciences ......................25
Proactive Policing’s Effects on Crime and Communities ................27
BetaGov Supports Practitioners and Evaluators in Conducting
Randomized Control Trials to Test Criminal Justice Programs ...........29
Fresh Off the Press .............................................33
Promoting knowledge exchange to shape criminal justice research,
practice, and policy
FROM THE DIRECTORS
H
appy birthday, Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy! On
June 21, the CEBCP celebrated its 10th birthday at our annual
symposium at George Mason University. ank you for your
participation and for making the symposium successful! We could not
have done it without our fantastic panelists, CEBCP faculty and graduate
assistants, Mason’s events management and catering teams, and of course,
all of you.
is year, during our annual meeting with our advisory board, we
discussed the continued role that the CEBCP will play in criminal justice
policy at local, national, and international levels, and how we might move
forward in the next 10 years. With a large and diverse grants portfolio,
a strong research team, and the recent inclusion of the Washington/
Baltimore High Intensity Drug Tracking Areas (HIDTA) program,
the sky is the limit for our center. With the help and advice of our distin-
guished advisory board members, we will be increasing our research role
and outreach in new national policy arenas, including the opioid epi-
demic, rearms violence, cybercrime, and fraud. And, we will continue
to focus and strengthen our interdisciplinary research in evidence-based
policing, crime and place, community crime prevention, systematic
reviews, criminal justice technology, and the courts.
For those of you who are new to the CEBCP, we are an academic unit
within the Department of Criminology, Law and Society at George
Mason University. Our work is thus anchored by the core goal of training
new scholars and practitioners in doing rigorous and impactful research
and research translation. rough our eorts, we focus on advancing our
department, college, and university, and we take a keen interest in the
development of the scholarly eld of criminology and criminal justice.
In the last 10 years, seven CEBCP research assistants have received their
doctorates and have become professors or researchers at top-ranked
criminal justice programs or research think tanks. is fall, we welcome
six new criminology doctoral students to work on projects in the CEBCP,
bringing us to 16 research assistants for the 2018-19 school year.
Our fall 2018 issue of Translational Criminology magazine reects all
of these strengths and our vision. In this issue, you can read about our
national eorts, including our new partnership with HIDTA to combat
opioid harms as described by Tom Carr, executive director of HIDTA,
and Cynthia Lum. We also highlight the contributions of CEBCP fac-
ulty and senior fellows to the National Academy of Sciences Committee
on Proactive Policing, which was led by David Weisburd and Malay
Majmundar (the CEBCP’s Cynthia Lum, Steven Mastrofski, and James
Bueermann were also members of the committee). Ted Gest from
Criminal Justice Journalists and our own Laurie Robinson write about
their eorts to reinvigorate the national discourse on criminal justice
started by former-President Johnson’s Crime Commission and National
Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (also known as the “Kerner”
Commission). ese eorts underscore the need for a new national
criminal justice commission to address not only our nation’s progress in
the practice and evaluation of justice, but also our continued (and new)
challenges that need atten-
tion. One gravely serious
national concern is school
safety and particularly the
prevention of mass shootings
in schools. Anthony Petro-
sino, Ashley Boal, and
Augustus Mays, our partners
from WestEd, write about policy formation in this tough area.
Also in this issue, two contributors discuss and update us on two
important elements of evidence-based crime policy: experimental research
and the use of data and risk assessments for practice. Richard Berk, a pro-
fessor at the University of Pennsylvania, presents a primer for criminal
justice risk assessment, addressing criticism and development of risk
assessments in criminal justice research and practice. Justin Escamilla and
Jessica Reichert at the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority and
Maureen Hillhouse and Angela Hawken of BetaGov talk about BetaGov’s
eorts to increase the use of experimentation in the eld. Improving on
the use of these and other research tools for the benet of practice is a
continued goal of the CEBCP.
And, of course, we highlight the excellent work that practitioners are
doing to translate research into practice and for the public. Ken Clary,
area commander in the Iowa State Police, discusses innovative and evi-
dence-based approaches he has developed in partnership with the
CEBCP to address rural trac fatalities. Ann Merchant of the National
Academy of Sciences (NAS) and Ana Salceda, a documentary lmmaker,
write about the NAS’s Science & Entertainment Exchange, a program in
the NAS to help translate research into popular mediums like lm. ese
unique ideas and activities reect the CEBCP’s continuing interests and
eorts to understand how research can be translated and institutionalized
into the eld.
In this issue, you can also hear from our 2018 Distinguished Achieve-
ment Award winners, James Bueermann and Edmund McGarrell, and
our 2018 inductees into the Evidence-Based Policing Hall of Fame, Jef-
fery Egge and Michael Newman. ese individuals have devoted their
professional careers to evidence-based crime policy, and we celebrate them
as examples of excellence in conducting impactful research and translating
it into the eld.
Again, we thank all of you who have supported the CEBCP and
look forward to another 10 years of impactful research and discourse in
evidence-based crime policy.
Cynthia Lum, Director and Editor of Translational Criminology
David Weisburd, Executive Director
Fall 2018 | TRANSLATIONAL CRIMINOLOGY 1
e 2018 Center for Evidence-Based
Crime Policy Symposium
H
appy 10th birthday, Center for Evidence-Based Crime
Policy! Our birthday celebration on June 21 was marked
by our largest symposium yet, with almost 400 registrants
representing more than 200 organizations from federal, state, and
local governments; research organizations; foundations; universities;
criminal justice research rms; international organizations; and inter-
ested members of the community. At the symposium we presented
the Distinguished Achievement Award in Evidence-Based Crime
Policy to Chief James Bueermann of the Police Foundation and
Professor Edmund McGarrell of Michigan State University. We
also inducted two new members into the Evidence-Based Policing
Hall of Fame: Sergeant Jeery Egge of the Minneapolis Police
Department and Detective Inspector Michael Newman of the
Queensland Police Service.
roughout the day, panelists shared new research evidence on a
variety of timely and important topics detailed here.
Responses to the Opioid Epidemic
Executive director Tom Carr of the Washington/Baltimore High
Intensity Drug Tracking Areas (HIDTA) program kicked things o
with an overview of the opioid epidemic and how HIDTA, through its
many partnerships (including now with CEBCP), is trying to address
it. Michael Campbell (Institute for Behavior and Health) followed
up with results from one of these HIDTA-funded drug treatment
approaches to reduce recidivism. Lora Peppard of George Mason
University then discussed the impact of early intervention approaches
and integrated care models on substance use and depression.
Critical Issues in Forensic Investigations
e recent decision by the Department of Justice (DOJ) to not
renew the National Commission on Forensic Science leaves both the
recommendations of that commission and the role of research for
forensics unresolved. Steven Burmeister and Joseph DiZinno, both
of George Mason University, discussed the history and current state
of forensics research, as well as examples and challenges of forensics
research in the eld. Kevin Strom, from RTI International, then
presented research from a DOJ-funded project examining sexual
assault kit processing and reforms. e discussion was led by Billy
Leiserson of BL Insights LLC, who reected on his experience in
government and forensics research.
Mental Health and the Police
Chief Howard Hall of the Roanoke Police Department introduced
the panel, noting the challenges his law enforcement agency faces
when developing responses to mental health crises. Clair White from
Mason then discussed ndings from research in Baltimore, exploring
the nature of the locations from which mental health crisis calls to
the police arise. Melissa Morabito, from the University of Massachu-
setts Lowell, provided preliminary ndings from the co-responder
model adopted by the Boston Police Department, highlighting the
challenges of data collection in this arena. e panel concluded with
Amy Watson, from the University of Illinois at Chicago, who pre-
sented a rigorous evaluation of crisis intervention teams and mental
health crisis response in Chicago.
Communities and Crime Prevention
A lively and well-attended session showcased research from CEBCP
faculty and our partners from the Scottish Institute for Policing
Research. e center’s executive director David Weisburd discussed
“hot-o-the-press” ndings from an experimental evaluation of a
policing intervention aimed at improving community engagement
and collective ecacy in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota. Denise Martin
2 www.cebcp.org
A panel presentation
at the symposium
from the University of the West of Scotland described qualitative
ndings from a prevention-focused policing intervention imple-
mented by Police Scotland. Charlotte Gill, CEBCP’s deputy director,
presented updated results from her ongoing study in the Rainier
Beach neighborhood of Seattle. e session was chaired by Claudia
Gross-Shader, assistant city auditor for the City of Seattle.
Police Technologies—Body-Worn Cameras
Body-worn cameras are becoming one of the fastest diusing tech-
nologies in law enforcement today. Professor James Willis of George
Mason University led this panel, exploring empirical research about
using cameras. Georey Raymond of the University of California,
Santa Barbara, presented how video data could be used to evaluate
and improve police encounters with the public. Andrea Headley
from the University of California Berkeley and Ohio State University
then discussed her research on the impact of body-worn cameras on
ocer behavior and perceptions.
Understanding and Addressing Disparity
While a great deal of research has focused on detecting disparity in
the criminal justice system, very little has focused on evaluating inter-
ventions that might mitigate disparity. is panel brought attention
to these concerns. Shaun Gabbidon of Penn State Harrisburg opened
the panel with a discussion of racial disparities in criminal justice,
both in the past and in the present. April Fernandes from North Car-
olina State University shared her research on misdemeanor criminal
justice contact and racial disparities in employment outcomes. Ever-
ette Penn from the University of Houston, Clear Lake, then pre-
sented work he and colleagues are doing to improve the relationship
between youth and the police, especially minority youth.
Firearms Violence and Policy Responses
A group of leading rearms researchers presented new ndings and
policy implications from studies addressing multiple dimensions of
the nation’s gun violence problem. Daniel Webster of Johns Hopkins
University examined the crime and community impacts of proactive
policing eorts to stem the recent surge of gun violence in Baltimore.
April Zeoli of Michigan State University discussed the development
and implementation of policies to reduce rearm access and use
among perpetrators of intimate partner violence. Garen Wintemute
from the University of California, Davis, then presented ndings and
policy implications from recent research on the risks of violence
among legal handgun purchasers who are alcohol abusers.
Police Proactivity—Findings from the National Academy
of Sciences Report
is year the National Academies of Sciences formed a committee to
tackle the eects and consequences of police proactivity. is panel
presented the ndings of the committee’s consensus report, led by
David Weisburd of George Mason University and Malay Majmundar
from the National Academy of Sciences and joined by committee
member Stephen Mastrofski, also from George Mason University.
Topics covered included the impact of proactive policing on crime
control, community reactions to proactive policing, and the implica-
tions of proactivity for law and legality. e consensus report also
covered racial bias and disparities in proactive policing and presented
recommendations to the eld on the use of proactive policing.
School-Based Crime Prevention
Given the recent events in Parkland, Florida, and Santa Fe, Texas,
school safety and the role of school police ocers continue to be on
everyone’s minds. In this panel, organized by our friends at the Texas
School Safety Center, Texas State University, presenters explored the
evidence base underlying policy development on this key issue.
Joseph McKenna of Texas State University kicked o the panel with
a presentation on how school police ocer roles aect responses to
student misconduct. Benjamin Fisher from the University of Louis-
ville discussed the ndings from a national longitudinal study of
school crime and school resource ocer roles. Anthony Petrosino of
WestEd discussed how lessons from the tragedies in Columbine,
Sandy Hook, and Parkland have inuenced the development of
school safety policy and practice. Paul Hirscheld of Rutgers Univer-
sity rounded out the panel with a discussion and critique of evidence
and policy in this area.
Practitioner Innovations and Research in the Field
Practitioners are now leading by example, advocating for evidence-
based practices and developing research projects and innovations in
practice. e National Institute of Justice Law Enforcement
Advancing Data and Science (LEADS) Scholars are at the head of this
pack and presented their research eorts in this panel, chaired by
LEADS mentor Gary Cordner. Wendy Stiver of the Dayton (Ohio)
Police Department presented her work on an initiative to reduce
infant mortality. Jeremiah Johnson of the Darian (Connecticut) Police
Department shared his crime prevention test of police visibility and
patrol car lighting. Ken Clary of the Iowa State Patrol presented his
Fall 2018 | TRANSLATIONAL CRIMINOLOGY 3
Professor April Zeoli, of Michigan State University, presenting on rearms policy
Continued on page 16
Anthony Petrosino Ashley Boal Augustus Mays
Policy Responses to a High Prole School Tragedy
BY ANTHONY PETROSINO, ASHLEY BOAL, AND AUGUSTUS MAYS
Anthony Petrosino is director of the Justice and Prevention Research
Center at WestEd, associate director of WestEd’s Health and Justice Pro-
gram, and senior fellow at the Center for Evidence-Based
Crime Policy.
Ashley Boal is a senior research associate in WestEd’s Health
and Justice Program.
Augustus Mays is director of government relations in WestEd’s
Oce of Policy and Communications.
T
he policy decision-making process is often assumed to be lin-
ear and rational. Policymakers identify a problem and poten-
tial solutions, evaluate the options (perhaps examining
research evidence for each of the options), and then select and imple-
ment the chosen solution. e reality of policy decision-making is
often much messier. Some scholars have described the policy-making
process as a “garbage can” model in which there are multitudes of
challenges and issues, policy stakeholders, and interest groups, with
no clear process leading to policy decisions (Cohen, March, and
Olsen, 1972). Despite recent attention on ensuring research has a
bigger seat at the table to facilitate the development of evidence-
based policies (Petrosino and Boruch, 2013), research may only be
one minor input into this process, especially when the public calls for
swift action.
Intense “focusing events” (Kingdon, 1984) are one catalyst that
jumpstarts the policy-making process. Focusing events include inci-
dents that are sudden and relatively rare, impact a dened commu-
nity, are harmful or have the potential for future harm, and are
known to policymakers and the public simultaneously (Birkland,
1997). In the face of intense focusing events, there is often
immense media coverage and public outrage, the inclination to
make quick policy decisions, and the prioritization of one issue
above all others. High prole school tragedies such as the mass
shootings that occurred at Columbine High School in Littleton,
Colorado, in 1999; Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown,
Connecticut, in 2012; and most recently, at Marjory Stoneman
Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, are such intense focus-
ing events, each followed by nonstop news coverage after the crime,
extreme policy positions oered by some, and public pressure to
develop and enact policies to keep students and sta safe. is
paper describes the policy responses by states following these school
shootings and poses questions that should be considered to guide
policy development following a similar tragedy.
What have policy responses following high prole school
tragedies looked like?
Within six months of the tragedy at Columbine High School, policy-
makers in nearly every state proposed and passed school safety legisla-
tion. e content of proposed and enacted legislation varied but
often focused on preventive measures such as adding school counsel-
ors, urging mental health evaluations of students caught carrying
weapons, setting up toll-free tip lines, developing and adopting
school safety and emergency plans, increasing penalties for school
oenses (what some have called “zero tolerance” policies), and pro-
viding state safety grants for school districts. But not all the responses
called for quick policy actions.
At the time of the Education Commission of the States (ECS)
report (1999a; 1999b), ve states had passed legislation to create
school safety task forces or commissions and three states passed legis-
lation to develop specialized school safety and violence prevention
centers. Furthermore, several states proposed and passed legislation
for research or evaluation studies to assess the impact of the policies
they instituted.
During 2013, or the rst 12 months following the tragedy at
Sandy Hook Elementary School, more than 450 separate state-level
school safety bills were proposed and 108 of those were enacted
(Education Week, 2013). e proposed and enacted bills focused on
diverse topics including mandating school emergency planning, arm-
ing school employees, improving school climate, and putting more
police in schools. Although the policies considered after the tragedies
at Columbine High School and Sandy Hook Elementary School
share some similarities, proposed policies following the tragedy at
Columbine High School tended to focus on how schools deal with
aberrant student behavior, while proposed policies following the trag-
edy at Sandy Hook Elementary School tended to focus on guns in
schools (e.g., keeping them out of dangerous hands, arming and
training school sta) and requiring relevant state agencies to develop
and adopt school safety plans.
4 www.cebcp.org
In the rst four months after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman
Douglas High School on February 14, 2018, 50 of the distinct 54
state-level school safety bills that were introduced were passed (ECS,
2018). ese bills focused on topics such as instituting more bullying
prevention programs, implementing emergency response systems,
arming teachers, and providing funds for districts to access to address
school safety. e speed at which some of this legislation was passed
conrms this tragedy’s role as an intense focusing event. For example,
three weeks after the massacre, Florida’s governor signed the Marjory
Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act, which included
provisions regarding raising the gun purchase age to 21, eliminating
bump stocks that increase the rapid re of existing weapons, allowing
for arming of certain school employees, and enacting procedures for
removing guns from those deemed dangerous due to mental illness.
Although the bulk of policy proposals occurred at the state level,
it is important to note that federal legislative responses to high pro-
le school tragedies have also occurred. For example, after the trag-
edy at Columbine High School, the Community Oriented Policing
Services (COPS) Oce introduced the COPS in Schools program,
which supported hiring more police ocers in schools (U.S.
Department of Justice, n.d.); after the tragedy at Sandy Hook Ele-
mentary School, then-President Obama introduced the Now is the
Time initiative to reduce gun violence, which provided funding for
initiatives addressing mental health of young persons and school cli-
mate (e White House, 2013); and after the shooting at Marjory
Stoneman Douglas High School, an omnibus funding bill was
passed that included the STOP School Violence Act, providing
funding to create reporting systems, improve school security, and
increase violence prevention training.
At both the federal and state levels, the processes by which policy-
makers developed policy responses is largely unknown and is an area
that would benet from further research aimed at identifying how
decisions were made and the eectiveness of enacted policies. Until
more research is available to guide decision-making, it is valuable to
think through strategies and key questions that facilitate sound and
research-informed policy development.
What do we do in response to future high prole
school tragedies?
A call for immediate action to ensure students and sta are safe at
school followed each of the three school tragedies discussed here. As
school leaders and policymakers grapple with potential approaches to
improve school safety, we propose several questions to guide conver-
sation and subsequent decision-making.
• What research is already out there that can inform
the discussion?
e current emphasis on evidence-based policy highlights the
importance of incorporating research into the policy decision-
making process. We do not advocate research evidence being the
only factor to consider, but it should have a “priority seat at the
table” (Lum & Koper, 2017). Although conducting new research
takes time and resources that may not be available quickly enough
to inform policy decisions, there is a wealth of information already
available on topics such as school safety, mental health, school cli-
mate, and gun violence. We advocate that policymakers rely on
existing reviews of the literature that competently assess the avail-
able research evidence. For example, the Campbell Collaboration
is an international organization that prepares, updates, and elec-
tronically disseminates high quality reviews in areas such as crime
and justice (Farrington & Petrosino, 2000, 2001). When such
reviews are not available, techniques such as rapid evidence assess-
ments can be used to quickly get a picture of what the evidence
reveals about the issue under consideration (Petrosino et al., 2015).
Another possibility is to quickly convene experts who have been
working in the eld so that policymakers can draw on their input
and recommendations about what to do.
• What is the logic behind the policy proposal?
Every program or policy has an explicit or implicit theory about
why its advocates believe it should work (Rogers, Hacsi, Petrosino,
& Huebner, 2000). One useful exercise in drawing up policies is to
consider this underlying theory (Petrosino & Turpin-Petrosino,
1999). What is the logic behind the policy and the key mecha-
nisms that are expected to drive results? is exercise should be
done in collaboration with a good understanding of the problem
itself. ese processes can help uncover faulty logic and unneces-
sary policy elements or can identify other components that are
needed to increase the success of the proposed policy.
• What unintended consequences might occur if the policy
is enacted?
Although the development of policy following high-prole school
tragedies is grounded in the desire to keep students safe, the range
and intensity of potential side eects for potential policies must be
examined. For example, the use of school resource ocers (SROs)
has increased over the last three decades in response to school vio-
lence incidents (eriot, 2009). Although having SROs on campus
ensures law enforcement is poised to respond if a violent incident
occurs, their presence may also lead to increased disciplinary action
or police involvement for students (Fisher & Hennessy, 2016),
which contributes to negative outcomes such as lowered academic
achievement and increased negative behavioral outcomes (Fabelo
et al., 2011). Similarly, arming teachers and other sta may pro-
vide the potential for someone to intervene more quickly to end a
school shooting, but it may create a target for a person wanting to
get a hold of a weapon, confuse law enforcement entering the
scene as to who the active shooter is, and increase accidents in the
school with rearms going o inadvertently. us, the potential
benets associated with these strategies have to be considered
alongside the potential drawbacks so that policies are designed to
reduce negative side eects to the extent possible.
Fall 2018 | TRANSLATIONAL CRIMINOLOGY 5
• What are the costs and opportunity costs associated with
this policy?
Rarely will government have the resources to institute every poten-
tial policy. New policy often requires the shifting of resources to
provide funding to support new sta, systems, procedures, or mate-
rials. When considering a policy proposal, dening the associated
costs and identifying where those funds will come from is paramount.
It is almost always the case that funding for new endeavors will mean
other policies and programs will not be funded. For example, a policy
requiring the use of metal detectors in schools requires the purchase of
the necessary equipment, as well funding for sta tasked with operating
and monitoring the metal detectors. e strength of this type of policy
proposal should be examined in the context of previous research, the
logic of the proposition (e.g., will metal detectors deter individuals who
seek to carry out a mass shooting?), the unintended consequences (e.g.,
hurting school climate), the associated costs (e.g., in 2015, Worcester
estimated that metal detectors for its ve high schools would cost at least
$70,000 [Corcoran, 2015]), and what will be impacted by diverting
funds to support this initiative (e.g., other school safety programming).
When faced with a high prole school tragedy, one strategy for compre-
hensively addressing these questions and weighing the pros and cons of
various policy options is through the development of school safety com-
missions or task forces. Although the commissioning of a task force to
review the event and make recommendations can be viewed negatively as
stalling action, it may be useful in the context of intense focusing events
like a mass shooting at a school. Convening a task force allows for a “cool-
ing o” period to prevent hasty decisions that are not grounded in strong
research and solid theory. In addition, task forces are typically composed
of practitioners, policymakers, and researchers who can bring expertise
and diverse voices to discussions about school safety and student well-
being. Such a convergence of leaders can provide space for deep discus-
sions and thorough vetting of policy proposals. Following the tragedy at
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, task forces on school safety
have already been convened in several states, including Nevada, Utah,
and Pennsylvania. Research is needed to understand if this additional
time before recommendations are oered and policies are made results
in more evidence-based and thoughtful solutions in response to a high
prole tragedy.
References
Birkland, T. A. (1997). After disaster: Agenda setting, public policy, and
focusing events. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
Cohen, D., March, J. G., & Olsen, J. P. (1972). A garbage can model
of organizational choice. Administrative Science Quarterly, 17, 1-25.
Corcoran, L. (2015). Metal detectors in our schools: How much do they
cost? Retrieved from https://www.masslive.com/news/worcester/
index.ssf/2015/05/metal_detectors_in_our_schools.html
Education Commission of the States (2018). State education policy
tracking. Retrieved from https://www.ecs.org/state-education-
policy-tracking/
Education Commission of the States (1999a). State strategies for address-
ing school safety. Clearinghouse Notes. Safety/Crime/Violence.
Denver, CO: Author.
Education Commission of the States (1999b). Common state strategies
for addressing school safety. ECS Statenotes. Safety/Crime/Violence.
Denver, CO: Author.
Education Week (2013). School safety legislation since Newtown.
Retrieved from https://www.edweek.org/ew/section/multimedia/
school-safety-bills-since-newtown.html
Fabelo, T., ompson, M. D., Plotkin, M., Carmichael, D., March-
banks, M. P., & Booth, E. A. (2011). Breaking schools’ rules: A
statewide study of how school discipline relates to students’ success
and juvenile justice involvement. New York, NY: Council of State
Governments Justice Center.
Farrington, D. P., & Petrosino, A. (2001). e Campbell Collabora-
tion Crime and Justice Group: Preparing systematic reviews of
criminological interventions. e Annals of the American Academy
of Political and Social Science, 578(Nov), 35-49.
Farrington, D. P., & Petrosino, A. (2000). Systematic reviews of
criminological interventions: e Campbell Collaboration Crime
and Justice Group. International Annals of Criminology 38.5, 49-66.
Fisher, B. W., & Hennessy, E. A. (2016). School resource ocers and
exclusionary discipline in U.S. high schools: A systematic review
and meta-analysis. Adolescent Research Review, 1, 217-233.
Kingdon, J. W. (1984). Agendas, alternatives, and public policies.
New York: Longman.
Lum, C., & Koper, C.S. (2017). Evidence-based policing: Translating
research into practice. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Petrosino, A., & Boruch, R.F. (2013). Evidence-based Policy in Crime
and Justice. In G. Bruinsma, & D. Weisburd (Eds.), Encyclopedia of
criminology and criminal justice. New York, NY: Springer.
Petrosino, A., Campie, P., Pace, J., Fronius, T., Guckenburg, S.,
Wiatrowski, M., & Rivera, L. (2015). Cross-sector, multi-agency
interventions to address urban youth rearms violence: A rapid
evidence assessment. Aggression and Violent Behavior 22, 87-96.
Petrosino, A. J., & Carolyn Petrosino (January, 1999). e public
safety potential of “Megan’s Law” in Massachusetts: A preliminary
assessment from a sample of criminal sexual psychopaths. Crime
and Delinquency, 45(1),140-158.
Rogers, P, Hacsi, T., Petrosino, A., & Huebner, T. (2000). Program
theory in evaluation: Challenges and opportunities. New
Directions in Evaluation, 87(Fall), 5-14.
e White House (2013). Now is the time: e president’s plan to
protect our children and our communities by reducing gun violence.
Retrieved from https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/
default/les/docs/wh_now_is_the_time_full.pdf
eriot, M. T. (2009). School resource ocers and the criminaliza-
tion of student behavior. Journal of Criminal Justice, 37, 280-287.
U.S. Department of Justice (n.d.). Community Oriented Policing
Services: About webpage. Retrieved from https://cops.usdoj.gov/
about
6 www.cebcp.org
Washington/Baltimore High Intensity Drug
Tracking Areas Program Joins George Mason
University’s Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy
BY THOMAS CARR AND CYNTHIA LUM
omas Carr is executive director of the Washington/Baltimore High
Intensity Drug Tracking Areas program and former chief of the Bureau
of Drug Enforcement for the Maryland State Police.
Cynthia Lum is director of the Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy
and a professor in George Mason University’s Department of Criminology,
Law and Society.
T
his year, the Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy
(CEBCP) at George Mason University became one of the
three university homes for the Washington/Baltimore High
Intensity Drug Tracking Areas program (HIDTA). e new
HIDTA program at Mason (GMU-HIDTA) will employ dozens of
analysts and program managers, including a new GMU-HIDTA
coordinator who will help facilitate research relationships between
HIDTA, CEBCP, and other Mason faculty and centers.
For those who may not be familiar with the HIDTA program, it
was created by Congress following the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988
1
and is funded by the Oce of National Drug Control Policy. e
program provides assistance to federal, state, local, and tribal law
enforcement agencies in areas determined to be critical drug-track-
ing regions of the United States. Currently, 29 HIDTAs are in opera-
tion across 50 states, as well as in Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin
Islands, and the District of Columbia. Funding for HIDTAs must
come through a duciary (university or law enforcement organiza-
tion). e program reports to an executive board.
e Washington/Baltimore HIDTA (W/B HIDTA), established in
1994, is the largest HIDTA in operation today. Its mission is to improve
interagency collaboration, promote the sharing of accurate, timely infor-
mation and intelligence, and provide specialized resources to our partici-
pating law enforcement, and treatment and criminal justice agencies.
e W/B HIDTA is known for its innovative approaches to drug
enforcement, treatment, and prevention work that combine evidence-
based research with state-of-the-art technology. e W/B HIDTA is the
only HIDTA authorized by Congress to fund drug treatment programs.
W/B HIDTA’s intelligence-driven initiatives are currently working in
18 sites across Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of
Columbia. A portion of the W/B HIDTA’s annual funding, approxi-
mately $3 million, will go to Mason each year to support intelligence
analysts and project managers, and foster new research opportunities.
With the support and assis-
tance of the university’s Pro-
vost’s Oce; the Oce of
Sponsored Research; Human
Resources; the College of
Humanities and Social Sci-
ences; and the Department of
Criminology, Law and Society;
GMU-HIDTA will be housed
in the CEBCP.
GMU-HIDTA will provide
Mason faculty and students across various disciplines with new data and
opportunities to research prevention and treatment interventions to com-
bat drug tracking, addiction, and related concerns. is is a major
opportunity for the university and the nation to integrate cutting-edge
practice with cutting-edge science, all in the pursuit of reducing drug use
and drug tracking in the United States. For example, GMU-HIDTA
provides opportunities for Mason researchers to access existing HIDTA
data, expertise, and law enforcement connections to study addiction,
treatment, drug tracking, and related crimes, as well as law enforcement
resources. Our partnership has already led to joint grant applications this
year between HIDTA and Mason researchers and faculty to the Depart-
ment of Justice, and connections between GMU-HIDTA and the Pro-
vost’s Opioid Initiative.
2
ere will also be opportunities for collaboration
and partnership across other departments, schools, and colleges, including
Mason’s Criminal Investigations and Network Analysis Center, which is a
Department of Homeland Security Center of Excellence. e W/B
HIDTA also provides internship and research opportunities for under-
graduate and graduate students, with the hope that these students will
become interested in future employment with HIDTA. We are also work-
ing on the possibility of developing a certicate program at Mason in
intelligence analysis that takes advantage of both HIDTA’s and CEBCP’s
expertise in this area.
Most importantly, the GMU-HIDTA partnership adds to the CEBCP’s
and to the Department of Criminology, Law and Society’s continued
Mason goal to engage in impactful research and promote evidence-based
practices in criminal justice to develop solutions for America’s illicit drug
and crime problems. Today’s opioid crisis is growing, and enforcement
alone will not be enough to address it. Finding ways to prevent, deter,
treat, and reduce harm to the community will be a central focus of the
GMU-HIDTA relationship.
1 Pub.L. 100–690, 102 Stat. 4181, enacted November 18, 1988, H.R. 5210. 2 See https://www2.gmu.edu/news/512121.
Thomas Carr Cynthia Lum
Fall 2018 | TRANSLATIONAL CRIMINOLOGY 7
A Primer on Criminal Justice Risk Assessments
BY RICHARD BERK
Richard Berk
Richard Berk is a professor in the departments of criminology
and statistics at the University of Pennsylvania.
O
f late, there has been strong criticism of risk assessments that
help inform criminal justice decisions (Tonry, 2014; Starr,
2014; Angwin et al., 2016). ere has also been widespread
support, even if somewhat qualied by unease, for fairness and trans-
parency (Hamilton, 2016; Ferguson, 2017). Unfortunately, too much
of the public discussion has been based on information that is incom-
plete or in error. e intent here is to provide a quick summary of the
facts. More complete treatments may also be consulted (Berk, 2012).
1. What is a criminal justice risk assessment?
Risk assessments should be distinguished from the uses made of
those risk assessments. Although critics often conate the two, risk
assessments themselves are the focus of what follows. Addressing the
use and misuse of risk assessments is a topic for another time.
Criminal justice risk assessments are forecasts of illegal or otherwise
undesirable behavior. ey are most commonly used to help inform
decisions about individuals already in custody. For example, risk
assessments can help inform decisions at arraignments about whether
to detain an oender before his or her next court date. Other kinds of
criminal justice decisions that can be informed by risk assessments
include charging, sentencing, and parole release. e principal goal is
to improve decision-making so that the least restrictive means avail-
able are used to improve public safety. Other goals can include reduc-
ing incarcerated populations and removing unnecessary burdens on
individuals in custody. Some risk assessment tools provide numeric
risk scores representing dierent levels of risk. Other tools provide risk
categories, such as whether an individual will be arrested while on
probation.
2. Are risk assessments a recent development?
Risk assessments in criminal justice settings are old news. In the
United States, risk assessments were introduced into parole hearings
in the 1920s. But the methods used to determine risk have evolved.
Over time, quantitative data have played a growing role, and statis-
tical procedures have become increasingly sophisticated. For nearly
30 years, we have known that forecasts based on even very simple
statistical analyses are more accurate than clinical judgments
(Dawes et al., 1989).
3. How are risk assessment tools
developed?
Modern risk assessment tools used in crimi-
nal justice settings are “actuarial.” Data on
past oenders are analyzed to learn about
the types of oenders who are likely to
engage in criminal behavior and, for those
who do, the types of crimes committed.
e result is a set of risk groups that vary in
the threat they pose to public safety. For
example, one risk group might be males
who were 25 years of age with three prior convictions for violent
crimes and two assaults on fellow inmates while in prison. When
members of this group were released on parole, 75 percent of them
were arrested within 18 months. Such a group would ordinarily be
considered high risk.
When risk is estimated for a new oender being considered for
parole, that risk is taken from the group in which the oender falls.
e risk for the group as a whole becomes the risk for the oender
and as such, is a forecast for that individual. To continue the exam-
ple, a new oender with the same characteristics would be assigned a
75 percent chance (i.e., probability) of being arrested within 18
months of release on parole. e oender likely would be regarded as
high risk.
4. What statistical procedures are used?
A wide variety of statistical tools have been used over the years. Some
are very simple tabulations, such as what can be done with a spread-
sheet. For example, one can determine whether oenders who have
many prior convictions are more likely to commit subsequent violent
crimes than individuals who have no prior convictions for violent
crimes. Over the past several decades, regression analysis has replaced
tabular methods, and more recently, machine learning tools are
beginning to supplant regression. Regression analysis and machine
learning allow one to consider a larger number of possible risk pre-
dictors at once, but the underlying goals are eectively the same as
the earlier tabulations. e advantage of machine learning over
regression analysis is that machine learning algorithms roam far more
freely through the data and nd patterns that regression analysis can-
not. As a result, machine learning forecasts can be more accurate
(Fernández-Delgado et al., 2014).
8 www.cebcp.org
5. What risk factors are used?
e risk factors used depend on the data available. Perhaps the most
common risk factor used is the prior criminal history of the oender,
broken down into dierent kinds of crimes. Sometimes the dates on
which those crimes occurred are also used. More recent criminal his-
tory will often predict more accurately. It can also matter how old
oenders were when their earliest crimes were committed. Oenders
whose criminal histories began at an early age (e.g., 14 years old) can
be especially high risks into their twenties and thirties. e biograph-
ical attributes of oenders are often used as well. Age and gender are
popular examples. Depending on the criminal justice decision to be
made, less common kinds of information may be available. For
example, when a parole decision is made, information about an
inmate’s conduct in prison can be very helpful, such as whether the
inmate was written up for misconduct, especially for actions that
would be felonies outside of prison (e.g., drug tracking).
Sometimes a distinction is made between risk factors that are
static and risk factors that are dynamic. is distinction depends on
the criminal justice decision being made. For example, when parole
boards consider releasing an inmate, gender and prior record are
static because they cannot change while an inmate is incarcerated.
Misconduct in prison or in-prison psychological inventories are
dynamic because they can change while an inmate is incarcerated.
Some argue that the distinction can be important insofar as dynamic
factors that can capture changes in an inmate’s current risk contrib-
ute more to forecasting accuracy than static factors.
6. How are risk instruments evaluated?
One has “training data” to develop the forecasting procedure, and
one has “test data” to determine how accurately the procedure fore-
casts. For both kinds of data, there are predictors (e.g., age) and
information on the behavior that will ultimately be forecasted (e.g.,
an arrest for armed robbery). Using the associations found in the
training data, forecasts are made with the test data. For test data,
because the outcome of interest is known, one can see how accurate
the forecasts would have been. When a new arrest is forecasted, what
is the proportion of the times when it actually happened? When a
new arrest is not forecasted, what is the proportion of the times when
it did not happen? Test data provide an honest assessment for fore-
casting performance because they are not used to build the forecast-
ing procedure. When training data are used to develop a forecasting
procedure and also to evaluate forecasting performance, there can be
serious “overtting.”
Risk assessment tools that prove to be suciently accurate are
sometimes said to be “validated.” at does not mean that the fore-
casts are always correct. Moreover, risk assessment tools validated for
one setting are not necessarily validated for other settings. For exam-
ple, the mix of oenders considered for release at arraignment can dif-
fer dramatically from the mix of oenders considered for release on
parole. Likewise, there can be dramatic dierences across jurisdictions
(e.g., in gang activity). How well a particular risk assessment proce-
dure generalizes is a matter of degree. It is good practice to undertake
setting-specic evaluations with setting-specic test data. New settings
can require revised or even new risk tools.
7. How is risk information conveyed?
Forecasts of risk can be provided in dierent forms. Sometimes a
score can be calculated for a given individual from a checklist of
proven predictors. Sometimes the score can be produced by a com-
puter or handheld device. Sometimes the score can be summarized
by a simple category: high risk or not high risk. And the forecasts can
be made for more than two categories, such as likely to commit a
violent crime, likely to commit a crime that is not violent, and
unlikely to commit any crime. But regardless of the outcomes fore-
casted, the current intent is to help inform criminal justice decisions,
not to determine those decisions.
Some risk procedures also provide measures of uncertainty that can
be attached with particular risk forecasts. ere can be dierent
degrees of uncertainty associated with forecasts of high risk. ere
can be dierent degrees of uncertainty associated with forecasts of
low risk. To take a simple example, a forecast that indicates an indi-
vidual on probation will be arrested for a violent crime can be cou-
pled with the chances that the forecast is wrong. Ideally, both the
forecast and its uncertainty are provided to decisionmakers.
8. Are risk assessment procedures black boxes?
Even if a risk tool produces very accurate forecasts, some stakeholders
will be skeptical unless the method by which those forecasts are con-
structed can be understood—the concern is with transparency. Trans-
parency can have a variety of
meanings depending on the details of a
Fall 2018 | TRANSLATIONAL CRIMINOLOGY 9
forecasting procedure. For example, if one knows the predictive factors
used as forecasting inputs, is that enough? Does one also require that
there is accurate understanding about how the procedure turns input
factors into forecasts? ere are dierent levels and kinds of “how,” some
of which may require substantial technical expertise and some of which
may not be well understood by anyone.
But to be fair, the same requirements of transparency should be
applied to human-produced forecasts, and the complexities are just as
daunting. For example, judges will often provide short explanations
in court about why a sentence of incarceration is being given, but is
that a full and accurate rendering of a judge’s thinking? And might
the rationale be post hoc to satisfy various parties in the case or to
anticipate subsequent appeals? And what about unconscious biases?
In short, the reasoning behind clinical forecasts can be just as opaque
as how the most complicated machine learning algorithms function.
Better transparency for both clinical forecasts and statistical forecasts
is an ongoing challenge.
Conclusions
No risk assessment instrument will forecast with perfect accuracy.
ere are many legitimate denitions of accuracy, but each will
underscore that forecasting mistakes are inevitable. With proper
tools, the mistakes can be less common than for current practice.
We can do better, but better is not perfect.
No risk assessment instrument in practice will be perfectly fair.
ere are trade-os. For example, men commit the vast majority of
violent crimes. It follows that a good risk tool will forecast that men
are at higher risk to be violent than women. Some might label this
inequality of outcome. Yet, one can make the risks comparable for
men and women by discounting arrests of men for violent crimes.
Violent crimes committed by men are treated as less important fore-
casting factors than violent crimes committed by women. Inequality
of outcome can then be eliminated. But this requires what some call
inequality of treatment—there is a thumb on the scale favoring men.
In short, there are many dierent kinds of fairness that can be
incompatible (Berk et al., 2017), and trade-os are unavoidable.
ere will also be a trade-o between fairness and accuracy. Increases
in fairness almost certainly lead to decreases in accuracy. Yet, the goal
is to have better performance than current practice, and by that yard-
stick, many recent risk assessment tools are demonstrably more fair.
Not all forecasting errors are created equal. For example, releasing
an inmate on parole who then commits a heinous crime has dierent
consequences from detaining an inmate who would be a model citi-
zen. Both decisions have costs, but most stakeholders would claim
the costs of these consequences can be very dierent. Any good risk
assessment tool must build in stakeholder assessments of the relative
costs of dierent kinds of forecasting errors. Current practice has
been dominated by an assumption of equal costs, which is typically
at variance with the preferences of stakeholders. Very misleading
forecasts can result. But, the problem is easily xed with modern
statistical methods.
Finally, some claim that risk assessments serve only to reinforce
criminal justice decisions that are draconian and unfair. at judg-
ment is draconian and unfair. Accurate risk assessments can be used
to intelligently reduce prison populations, identify good candidates
for diversion programs, or selectively apply less restrictive forms of
supervision while at the same time improving public safety. And all
this can be done while reducing unfairness that many claim taints
current criminal justice decision-making. What’s not to like?
References
Angwin, J., Larson, J., Mattu, S., & Kirchner, L. (2016). Machine
bias. ProPublica. Retrieved from https://www.propublica.org/arti-
cle/machine-bias-risk-assessments-in-criminal-sentencing
Berk, R. A. (2012). Criminal justice forecasts of risk: A machine
learning approach. New York: Springer.
Berk, R. A., Heidari, H., Jabbari, Kearns, M., & Roth, A. (2017).
Fairness in criminal justice risk assessments: e state of the art.
Retrieved from arXiv:1703.09207v2 [stat.ML].
Dawes, R. M., Faust, D., & Meehl, P. E. (1989). Clinical versus
actuarial judgment. Science, 243(4899), 1668-1674.
Ferguson, A. G. (2017). e rise of big data policing: Surveillance,
race, and the future of law enforcement. New York: New York
University Press.
Fernández-Delgado, M., Cernadas, E., Barro, S., & Amorim, D. (2014).
Do we need hundreds of classiers to solve real world problems? Jour-
nal of Machine Learning Research, 15(1), 3133-3181.
Hamilton, M. (2016). Risk-needs assessment: Constitutional and ethical
challenges. American Criminal Law Review, 52(2), 231-292.
Starr, S. B. (2014). Evidence-based sentencing and the scientic rational-
ization of discrimination. Stanford Law Review, 66, 803-872.
Tonry, M. (2014). Legal and ethical issues in the prediction of
recidivism. Federal Sentencing Reporter, 26(3), 167-176.
10 www.cebcp.org
Fall 2018 | TRANSLATIONAL CRIMINOLOGY 11
12 www.cebcp.org
Utilizing Data and Science to Reduce Serious
Injury and Fatality Crashes on Rural Roadways
BY KEN CLARY
Ken Clary is a captain with the Iowa State Patrol, currently serving as
an area commander responsible for four district oces encompassing 28
counties in Northeast Iowa. He is a graduate of the FBI National Acad-
emy (269th session), a National Institute of Justice LEADS Scholar, and
an executive fellow for the Police Foundation.
A
s commanders within state police and patrol organizations,
we are charged with protecting the citizenry traveling on our
roadways. Although some might view violations of trac
laws as lesser oenses, those infractions can often lead to death and/
or serious injury if not corrected. In 2016, a total of 37,461 people
lost their lives on U.S. roadways,
1
while, in comparison, 16,250 peo-
ple were reported by the FBI’s Uniformed Crime Report as murdered
that same year. Trac crashes result in an enormous loss of life annu-
ally and are consistently a leading cause of nonhealth related deaths
in the United States.
Law enforcement agencies throughout the nation have attempted
to deploy analysis and technology to enhance their operational eec-
tiveness when combating trac crashes. Often this is done by using
historical crash data and targeting enforcement eorts focused in
areas where there is a higher propensity for crashes to occur (i.e.,
Data-Driven Approaches to Crime and Trac Safety, or DDACTS).
However, such approaches may be less useful for many areas of the
country where crashes occur—rural roadways. More than 4.1 million
miles of roadway in the United States are in rural areas, and approxi-
mately 70 percent of fatality crashes occur on these rural roadways
each year.
2
Additionally, these crashes may not regularly cluster at
locations small enough to identify and target.
Take, for example, my home state of Iowa. ere are currently 350
troopers in the Iowa State Patrol (ISP), of which there are 260 whose
primary daily responsibility is trac safety throughout the 56,273
square miles in the state. Annually, 370 people die in trac crashes
in Iowa, somewhere along the state’s more than 92,000 miles of road-
way.
2
In Iowa, 76 percent of fatality crashes occur on rural roadways.
3
Due to the number of square miles, along with the thousands and
thousands of miles of rural roadways where the majority of these
1 U.S. Department of Transportation, National Highway Trac Safety
Administration. (2018). Trac safety facts: 2016 data. Retrieved from
https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/812521.
2 Ibid.
3 Iowa Department of Transportation. (2017). Fatal crashes in Iowa—
1988-2016. Retrieved from https://iowadot.gov/mvd/stats/fatalcrashes.
pdf.
crashes occur, it is sometimes dicult to
determine patterns with data. is is espe-
cially true if you are only using data from
the most recent past. In order to identify
patterns in rural areas, we must often
take a larger snapshot of time for patterns
to emerge.
e research evidence on crime concentra-
tions provides important clues to tackling
crashes on rural roadways. Specically, crime
and accidents often happen because of under-
lying opportunity structures that contribute to them. Although the exact
place for future fatality crashes to occur may be dicult to pinpoint, we
can identify with some certainty the causation of these crashes year after
year. Leading causes include distracted driving, operating
under the
inuence of alcohol and/or drugs, not wearing a seatbelt, and speed-
ing. As an example, more than 92 percent of Iowans wear their seat-
belts, but the remaining 8 percent who don’t wear their seatbelts
make up more than 42 percent of those killed in trac crashes.
4
If
we could simply get the remaining 8 percent to buckle their belts
before they begin the journey that leads to the crash site, we could
dramatically drive down trac fatalities. Identifying law enforcement
activities that work to deter and prevent accidents would have pro-
found eects on trac safety and may be useful in places where
events are more spread out. Indeed, “hot spots,” where people who
engage in risky behavior start their journeys, may be more identi-
able than where their crashes occur in rural environments.
is year the ISP and George Mason University’s Center for Evidence-
Based Crime Policy partnered to develop an innovative, targeted, place-
based, proactive, and tailored problem-oriented strategy, with the goal of
increasing the perception of law enforcement presence and thus signi-
cantly reducing trac crashes, injuries, and fatalities in Iowa. Unlike
other strategies that focus on where crashes might cluster, ISP and
Mason analyzed 10 years of crash data in order to identify potential “hot
towns” near crash sites as likely origin points for drivers involved in fatal-
ity crashes along Iowa’s rural roadways. With this data, they were able to
identify two hot towns within each county (for a total of 56 towns), as
well as one specic roadway section for each county (an additional 28
hot roadways), that are likely linked to the routine activities and oppor-
tunity structures of serious vehicle crashes. Analysis of data and crash
reports suggests that victims of serious injury and fatality crashes appear
4 Ibid. See also Iowa Department of Transportation. (2017). Facts and Stats
2017. Retrieved from https://iowadot.gov/mvd/factsandstats.
Ken Clary
Fall 2018 | TRANSLATIONAL CRIMINOLOGY 13
to be visiting these towns, becoming intoxicated with drugs or alcohol,
and then unsafely operating their vehicles (e.g., speeding, violating seat-
belt laws, dangerously operating a motor vehicle).
Perception of police presence is as importance as presence itself.
5
Impaired drivers take a calculated risk of driving their vehicle intoxi-
cated, believing they will not meet law enforcement presence. To combat
this perception, tailored interventions have been developed to target
both the hot spot road segments for crashes and the activity hot spots
within the nearby localities that serve as likely origin points for the driv-
ers. Troopers are assigned two or three counties each shift and perform
targeted patrols at designated crash and origin hot spots within those
counties randomly and intermittently. While in the hot spots, troopers
have high prole, (often somewhat unexpected) interactions with citi-
zens. ese interactions can be as simple as a conversation or trac stop,
but they are meant to leave a lasting and reverberating impression on the
community. Many of these interactions are nonpunitive and serve a dual
function of creating a deterrence eect and improving the perceptions of
the state police amongst the community.
In our initiative, night shift troopers (working between 3 p.m. and 1
a.m.) make 10- to 20-minute visits to each hot town, engaging in highly
visible citizen interactions at specic locations such as bars, gas stations,
and convenience stores, and then moving to the next hot spot. In addi-
tion to the evidence for problem-solving, this timing strategy is grounded
in research by Koper showing that periodic and unexpected short visits to
hot spots are an eective and ecient means of controlling crime and
disorder.
6
Troopers are asked to engage in nonpunitive interactions with
bar owners, bartenders, and patrons in a positive manner. e interac-
tions revolve around serving patrons responsibly, ensuring everyone has
made arrangements to get home safely, and providing patrons with safety
messages, including the importance of wearing seatbelts. Troopers also
leave behind literature in convenience stores and other high-volume citi-
zen areas (specically, literature regarding the leading causes of fatality
crashes, which include distracted driving, operating under the inuence
of alcohol and/or drugs, seatbelt usage, and speeding). Troopers might
also position themselves along highly traveled roadways to increase their
visibility and presence. Based on the deterrence literature, all of these
approaches are intended to create a “media” presence so that word
spreads in these places of increased police interest and presence in reduc-
ing serious and fatal vehicle crashes.
7
To provide some actual examples, a state trooper might enter a bar, sit
at a table with a patron, and strike up a conversation about hoping the
patron is having a good time and has a safe way to get home. at
patron may not have seen a trooper in their town for months, and
especially not inside a local bar. Such interactions are unusual, and if
5 Nagin, D. S., Solow, R. M., and Lum, C. (2015). Deterrence, criminal
opportunities, and police. Criminology: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 53(1),
74–100.
6 Koper, C. S. (1995). Just enough police presence: Reducing crime and
disorderly behavior by optimizing patrol time in crime hot spots. Justice
Quarterly, 12(4), 649–72.
7 Sherman, L. W. (1990). Police crackdowns: Initial and residual deterrence.
Crime and Justice, 12, 1-48.
done politely and respectfully, may become something that the patron
and others recount in the days ahead, even if that ocer is not able to
visit that particular bar again for some time. Yet this small gesture could
create an impression on patrons to at least focus on the consequences
of their behaviors or perhaps believe there is greater police presence
in the area if they do choose to drive while intoxicated.
Or, perhaps a trooper often sees an elderly farmer every day, driv-
ing through town without wearing his seatbelt to go have his morn-
ing coee with his buddies. e trooper stops the farmer, not to
write a ticket, but to have a conversation about a recent fatality wreck
that he handled because the driver wasn’t wearing his seatbelt. e
trooper expresses concern about the farmer’s safety, without necessar-
ily being punitive. at farmer is still going to go have coee that
morning, but he might tell his friends about the stop, what the o-
cer told him, and how he was treated. Again, such eorts may have
more of a lasting impression on the farmer (and his friends).
ese approaches, in addition to enforcement activities, may
provide an extra problem-solving layer to getting at the root of fatal-
ity crashes. Using analysis to identify strategic locations of the origins
and pathways to crash sites to implement these tactics is also a key
component of such strategies. All of these interactions are intended
to get people to see and talk about trooper actions with others, thus
increasing their perceptions of law enforcement presence, even
though hot origin locations might only be visited by troopers for
short periods of time. Increasing the perception of police presence
may also have a preventative impact on other crimes. Also important
is educating ocers on dierent ways that they can engage with the
public at these places.
is is a unique approach to trac enforcement, as it is proactive
and preventative—not reactive, as most trac enforcement eorts
tend to be. e ISP and researchers at George Mason University are
working together to collect a variety of performance measures for this
multi-year project to ultimately conduct a quasi-experimental evalu-
Continued on page 24
14 www.cebcp.org
50 Years Later: e Kerner Commission Legacy
BY LAURIE O. ROBINSON
Laurie O. Robinson is the Clarence J. Robinson Professor of Criminology, Law and Society at George Mason University. She co-chaired the White
House Task Force on 21st Century Policing in 2014-15.
A
merica was rocked in 1967 by weeks of racial unrest in cities
across the country. In Newark, New Jersey, and Detroit,
Michigan, alone, 69 people died. In late July of that year,
President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed an 11-member blue ribbon
body, the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders—
which came to be known after its chair, Illinois Governor Otto
Kerner—with the charge of investigating what happened, why it
happened, and what could be done to prevent its happening again.
1
Seven months later, the commission issued its report. It garnered
broad attention with a stark warning that “our nation is moving
toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal.”
2
Yet, despite the attention the Kerner report received in 1968 and its
forward-looking recommendations in many areas—including polic-
ing—it largely sank into oblivion in the succeeding decades.
A look back at this document half a century later is therefore well
in order.
e report vividly described the racial inequities and challenges
blacks in America’s center cities faced, including poor housing, high
infant mortality, decient schools, and exploitation by local busi-
nesses.
3
Illustrating the problem of poor sanitation services, the report
cited 14,000 cases of rat bites in the United States in 1965, mostly in
inner cities.
4
In each area, the report called for ambitious federal pro-
grams to tackle the problems in concert with local government. It also
urged reforms in how criminal courts should handle the administra-
tion of justice in the aftermath of disorders.
5
But it was in the area of policing that the commission made some
of its central ndings and recommendations. e report criticized law
enforcement not only for the way it responded to the riots, but also as
a key factor in triggering the disorders. And from Detroit to Watts,
Los Angeles, the commission found racial tensions reected commu-
nity grievances with not only the police, but with the broader criminal
justice system.
6
In fact, the commission wrote, “the policeman in the
ghetto is the symbol not only of law, but of the entire system of law
enforcement and criminal justice.”
7
e commission did not nd single or
simple answers to the racial disorders it stud-
ied. As its report stated, “e police are not
merely a ‘spark’ factor. To some Negroes,
police have come to symbolize white power,
white racism, and white repression…. e
atmosphere of hostility and cynicism is rein-
forced by a widespread belief among Negroes
in the existence of police brutality and in a
‘double standard’ of justice and protection—
one for Negroes and one for whites.”
8
To assess what led to the riots, the commission conducted a survey
of residents in 23 cities where disorders had occurred. “Police practices”
emerged as the most frequently cited grievance. It was also the one
rated at the highest “level of intensity” by residents.
9
Yet the commis-
sion also made clear that “the blame must be shared by the total soci-
ety.”
10
It asserted that, “the policeman in the ghetto is a symbol, nally,
of a society from which many ghetto Negroes are increasingly alien-
ated.”
11
Residents frequently called for stronger police protection, the
report noted, but then raised concerns if the response was too aggres-
sive, with few mechanisms in place to eectively handle grievances.
12
In order to address these problems, the commission set out a num-
ber of recommendations. It urged local jurisdictions and police agen-
cies to
• provide better police protection in inner-city neighborhoods
to address both residents’ fear of high crime and the belief by
many that a dual standard of law enforcement existed for blacks
and whites;
• set up a mechanism for grievances against the police and other city
employees;
• review law enforcement operations in the inner city to ensure proper
police conduct and eliminate abrasive practices;
• adopt policy guidelines to assist ocers in such areas as the use of
stop and frisk; use of alternatives to arrest, such as summons; and,
more broadly, on use of force;
Laurie O. Robinson
1 Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (e Kerner
Report). (1968). New York, NY: Bantam Books.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid., 266-274.
4 Ibid., 273.
5 Ibid., 19.
6 Ibid., 299.
7 Ibid.
8 Ibid., 11.
9 Ibid., 7.
10 Ibid., 17.
11 Ibid., 300.
12 Ibid., 17.
13 Ibid.
Fall 2018 | TRANSLATIONAL CRIMINOLOGY 15
• use innovative programs to ensure broad community support
for police;
• set up dialogue with inner-city residents to strengthen ongoing lines
of communication with them;
• recruit more minorities onto the police force and review promotion
policies to ensure fair promotion for minority ocers; and
• create “community service ocer” positions for young black youth
to interest them in police work.
13
e commission also looked critically at how police had dealt with
the disorders themselves, and commissioned the International Associa-
tion of Chiefs of Police (IACP) to conduct a study on riot control
planning by 30 large police departments. e study found all of them
possessed some kind of written plans, but there was great variation
among these plans—and many had aws.
14
Echoing today’s debates
about militarization of law enforcement, the commission took a strong
position against providing police with such weapons as machine guns
and tanks. “We should not,” the report declared, “attempt to convert
our police into combat troops equipped for urban warfare.”
15
And
foreshadowing discussions today about police legitimacy, the commis-
sion declared that “the true source of police strength in maintaining
order lies in the respect and goodwill of the public they serve.”
16
To provide guidance for local jurisdictions in how to handle riot pre-
vention and control, the commission laid out a set of recommenda-
tions. It urged agencies, for example, to:
• assure that ocers assigned to patrol inner city neighborhoods have
experience, training, and solid supervision;
• prepare for disorders with well-developed plans;
• provide alternatives to lethal weapons for use in riot control and
develop guidelines for their use (the commission also called for
federally supported research to develop nonlethal weapons);
• oer special training to ocers on how to prevent civil disorders; and
• set up mechanisms within the community to address rumors and
assist community leaders and citizens in dispelling false rumors that
could trigger a riot.
17
In formulating its policing recommendations, the commis-
sion leaned heavily on the work of the Johnson Crime
Commission,
18
which had issued its report in 1967.
19
at report’s in-
depth treatment of such issues as citizen grievance procedures, for
example, proved invaluable to the Kerner sta and commissioners.
One key issue that the Kerner group addressed related to funding
and the federal role in supporting change. It was clear to the commis-
sion that local governments could not alone bear the burden of sup-
porting reform measures. It therefore called on the federal government
to help provide monetary backing.
20
is funding, it urged, could sup-
port specic initiatives such as community service ocers—or, more
broadly, suggested improvements in the overall criminal justice sys-
tem, as the Johnson Commission had also espoused.
21
While this did
not mean local governments should avoid their responsibilities, the
Kerner Commissioners said, the importance of the issues involved
required a federal commitment.
After 1968—with Richard Nixon’s election and a conservative turn
in Washington—the Kerner proposals, especially those calling for Great
Society-style federal programs, received scant attention. And in criminal
justice, the Johnson Crime Commission recommendations—not Kern-
er’s—were remembered and turned to over ensuing decades. Yet many
of the Kerner proposals on policing have proven remarkably prescient.
eir focus on building bridges between police and communities of
color, on ensuring fair and impartial treatment of citizens, on address-
ing use of force and alternatives to arrest, and on promoting less-than-
lethal weapons—all of these mirror core issues still facing policing
today. Indeed, these were central topics addressed by the White House
Task Force on 21st-Century Policing appointed by then-President
Obama following the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri,
in 2014.
22
e Kerner Commission recommendations may thus provide some
guidance for the policing eld even half a century later. Both then and
now, optimistic proposals for reform were followed by retrenchment.
14 Ibid., 486.
15 Ibid., 492.
16 Ibid., 492.
17 Ibid., 18.
18 U.S. Government Printing Oce. (1967). U.S. president’s commission on
law enforcement and administration of criminal justice. e challenge of
crime in a free society.
19 e Kerner Report, op.cit., 301.
20 Ibid., p. 335.
21 Ibid., p. 336.
22 Oce of Community Oriented Policing Services. (2015). President’s task
force on 21st century policing. Final report of the president’s task force
on 21st century policing.
Roy Wilkins, Governor Otto
Kerner (chairman), and
President Lyndon B. Johnson.
Photo courtesy of the Lyndon
B. Johnson Presidential Library.
modied hot spots strategy to try and prevent fatality crashes on rural
roadways. Shon Barnes of the Salisbury (North Carolina) Police
Department then presented his research on the eects that hot spots
policing might have on racial disparities.
Improving Police Crime Prevention and Legitimacy
is panel featured presentations on innovative research designed to
inform policing practice and contribute to fairer and more eective
policing. Travis Taniguchi of RTI International presented on his
work with Elizabeth Gro, from Temple University, on near repeat
burglaries and new tools they developed to help agencies understand
the value of focusing on reducing near repeats. Cody Telep from
Arizona State University described ndings from a randomized
experiment in Tucson, Arizona, suggesting that a procedural justice
training program had intended impacts on ocer behavior in crime
hot spots. Megan O’Neill from the University of Dundee discussed
her work on reforming “stop and search” in Scotland and the role
research played in changing Police Scotland policies. Captain Tim
Hegarty from the Riley County (Kansas) Police Department
described his agency’s adoption of the Evidence-Based Policing
Playbook as part of the Matrix Demonstration Project and the crime
reduction value of incorporating research-based ocer directives
into the eld.
Practice-Focused Workshops
is year we also featured two practice-focused workshops on law
enforcement innovations that combine research with operations.
Je Beeson of HIDTA presented on the W/B HIDTA’s Overdose
Mapping Application (ODMAP), an information technology in use
by hundreds of police agencies across the United States to better
detect and respond to overdose spikes in communities. Dave Bierie,
a criminologist with the U.S. Marshals Service, also brought his team
to share with law enforcement the cutting-edge research and analysis
the marshals are doing with their available data and in collaboration
with university researchers to improve fugitive apprehension. David
Mazeika from the College of New Jersey discussed oending by
fugitives in the U.S. Bianca Bersani from the University of
Massachusetts, Boston, shared her research on foreign-born fugitives.
Bierie also presented on the fugitive nexus with lethal violence
directed at the police. In future symposia we hope to have more
practice-oriented workshops where justice practitioners can learn
how to generate and apply research and research innovations to
achieve their goals.
Congratulations to all for a successful symposium!
16 www.cebcp.org
More recently, an administration in Washington, D.C., that aggres-
sively advanced “Smart on Crime” proposals on policing, sentencing,
and corrections
23
has been followed by one focused on violent crime.
24
In some ways, this is not unlike the transition from Lyndon B. John-
son’s Great Society to Nixon’s “law and order” platform. But the simi-
larities may end there, because the criminal justice eld—and speci-
cally policing—are very dierent in 2018 from what they were 50
years ago. anks to the legacy of both commissions and the creation
of the federal criminal justice assistance program, law enforcement in
the United States is far better educated, more professional, and more
data-driven than it was in 1968.
Today, while it would be helpful to have leadership from Washing-
ton, D.C., there are numerous strong policing leaders across the coun-
try pursuing reform work who will continue with or without a “bully
pulpit” and targeted funding from the nation’s capital. And while the
current Justice Department is playing a limited role in “pattern or
practice” lawsuits challenging police practices, that involvement may
continue in cities where federal judges are already engaged. Similarly,
many police leaders nationally have vowed to press forward for
reforms.
25
As one law enforcement leader put it last year, it takes polic-
ing years to shift gears, “but once they change, it’s hard to stop that
direction.”
26
It is clear, however, despite reform eorts now under way and the
impressive leadership of many police leaders across America, that
much remains to be done. e support of line ocers and unions, for
example, will be critical to advancing real reform, and achieving cul-
ture change will not be easy.
27
But we can look back 50 years to the Kerner Commission report to
remind ourselves that it set out an ambitious blueprint for the future,
one that still remains relevant to the challenges that face us today.
23 Obama, B. (2017). e president’s role in advancing criminal justice
reform. Harvard Law Review, 130(811).
24 Sessions, J. (2017, June 20). Attorney General Je Sessions Delivers
Remarks at the Opening of the National Summit on Crime Reduction
and Public Safety. Retrieved from https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/
attorney-general-je-sessions-delivers-remarks-opening-national-summit-
crime-reduction
25 Jackman, T. & Berman, M. (2017, April 6). Some in local law enforce-
ment pledge to stick to reform. e Washington Post. Retrieved from
http://www.standard.net/National/2017/04/05/Some-in-local-law-
enforcement-pledge-to-stick-to-reform
26 Ibid.
27 International City Managers Association. Spotlight on police culture—
seeing the red ags of organizational cultures gone wrong. (2016,
February 27). Retrieved from https://icma.org/node/18142
e 2018 CEBCP Symposium continued from Page 3
Fall 2018 | TRANSLATIONAL CRIMINOLOGY 17
Marking the 50th Anniversary of
President Johnson’s Crime Commission
BY TED GEST
Ted Gest is the president of Criminal Justice Journalists, Washington
bureau chief of the Crime Report, and the founding partner of
John Jay College’s Center on Media, Crime, and Justice.
C
riminal justice in the United States is usually described as a
“system,” but in reality, it is not. Unlike a corporation with
a chief executive and a chain of command, the criminal
justice process involves about 18,000 local police departments,
thousands of judges, and a conglomeration of “corrections” agen-
cies that range from probation and parole departments to maxi-
mum security prisons.
Components of the justice process have provoked public contro-
versy amid viral videos of recent years, including police ocers who
killed unarmed suspects, judges who abused defendants, and bail and
sentencing laws that lled prisons and jails with more than 2 million
inmates, many in poor conditions on any given day. Advocates for
crime victims, wrongfully convicted defendants, and others dissatis-
ed with the justice process have complained loudly.
Remarkably, no formal body has conducted a comprehensive
review of criminal justice in more than half a century, when the
Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice
appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson issued a report in 1967
that made more than 200 recommendations on dealing with a street
crime problem that was expanding around the nation. Topics in this
report included juvenile crime, policing, courts, prosecution, correc-
tions, sentencing, racial issues in criminal justice, drugs, rearms,
domestic violence, crime statistics, science and technology, and pros-
pects for a new commission.
e commission’s conclusions are considered a criminal justice
landmark in the United States, laying out issues and recommenda-
tions that have provided a framework for policy development for
more than a half-century. As an example, its most notable single pro-
posal was the one calling for a single telephone number—911—to
report emergencies and major crimes. What is not well appreciated is
that the LBJ Commission, chaired by Attorney General Nicholas
Katzenbach, was among the rst eorts to recognize that the criminal
justice process should be recognized as a system, even if that system
often did not operate very eciently. e report also called attention
to issues that remained prominent 50 years later, including the need
for more fundamental academic research
and the improvement of the aws in
crime statistics.
e American Society of Criminology
(ASC), with a major boost from the Center
for Evidence-Based Crime Policy (CEBCP),
made a major eort to address the issue last
year. It started with ASC designating the
theme of its annual convention, held last
fall in Philadelphia, as marking the 50th
anniversary of the LBJ Commission. e
society had held single panel discussions relating to the commission
in the two previous years. However, with the help of Cynthia Lum,
an ASC board member and CEBCP’s director, we plotted a more
ambitious plan. With the support of the Harry Frank Guggenheim
Foundation, we recruited 15 prominent criminologists to conduct a
major review of dierent areas of the criminal justice system covered
by the Crime Commission’s report. ese criminologists included
Alfred Blumstein (Carnegie Mellon University), one of the original
authors of the 1967 report; Joanne Belknap and Deanne Grant (Uni-
versity of Colorado, Boulder); Philip Cook (Duke University); Rob-
ert Crutcheld (University of Washington); April Fernandez (North
Carolina State University); Jodi Lane (University of Florida); Doris
MacKenzie (Penn State University); Peter Reuter and Bryce Pardo
(University of Maryland); Lawrence Sherman (University of Mary-
land and University of Cambridge); Wesley Skogan (Northwestern
University); Cassia Spohn (Arizona State University); Michael Tonry
(University of Minnesota); and Paul Wormeli (IJIS Institute).
We asked these experts to do three things: examine what the LBJ
Commission recommended in the areas of their expertise; review the
developments of the past half-century, both in criminal justice prac-
tice and research; and identify what issues a modern-day criminal
justice commission should examine. e results were presented in a
series of presidential panel discussions at the ASC conference and
were published in May in a special issue of the ASC journal Crimi-
nology and Public Policy. In assigning articles, we concluded that the
subjects of race and domestic violence deserved extensive treatment,
although they were not discussed at length by the 1960s commission.
e report mentions several other major issues that have emerged
Ted Gest
18 www.cebcp.org
since the LBJ Commission’s report that would deserve consideration
by a new panel, including mental health, crime victims, cybercrime,
immigration, white collar crime, and evidence-based crime policy.
Our eort to call attention to the crime commission idea was not
limited to publishing the special journal issue. We organized a highly
attended brieng on Capitol Hill in April that featured presentations
by many of the ASC authors and a talk by Michigan senator Gary
Peters, a leading proponent of a new commission. Authors of our
volume also made presentations this year to leaders of the National
Association of Counties and the National Criminal Justice Associa-
tion, both of which are organizations that could take part in any
modern-day crime commission, whether or not it is formally estab-
lished by Congress.
In particular, we thought the 50-year anniversary special issue and
congressional brieng could serve as a blueprint for a newly
appointed commission, whose prospects were not clear in the elec-
tion year of 2018. A major law enforcement group, the International
Association of Chiefs of Police, has been calling for nearly three
decades for a new national criminal justice commission. en-U.S.
senator James Webb of Virginia came within three votes in 2011 of
winning passage of a law establishing a new commission whose chair
would be appointed by the president and whose members would be
chosen by congressional leaders of both parties.
A similar, bipartisan plan from Texas senator John Cornyn, South
Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, and Senator Gary Peters is pend-
ing on Capitol Hill.
1
It is likely to be included in another measure
that would reform federal sentencing laws, principally by eliminating
many mandatory minimum sentences. As of mid-2018, the sentenc-
ing bill was embroiled in a debate between competing proposals.
Conservative Republican senators and a majority of the House favor
a more modest proposal that would deal mainly with the rehabilita-
tion of federal prisoners. It seemed unlikely that the crime commis-
sion would be part of a bill that could clear Congress and be signed
by the president during a contentious election year.
In the meantime, some advocates favor the establishment of a
new commission that would be dominated by representatives of
governors, county commissioners, and mayors who now take lead-
ing roles in the criminal justice process. In the Criminology and
Public Policy special issue, criminologist Alfred Blumstein of
Carnegie Mellon University, who was the director of science and
technology for the LBJ Commission, notes that organizations such
as the National Governors Association could play a major part in a
non-federal commission.
1 See https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/573/text.
Many groups interested in criminal justice issues have expressed
support for a commission. ere has been no formal opposition,
although some advocates worry that setting up a new commission
would have the eect of delaying reform measures at the federal,
state, and local levels for which there already is considerable support.
Whatever happens, the review compiled by ASC members will
serve as the backdrop for any new eort to aim for comprehensive
improvements in the awed criminal justice process.
To view the CEBCP Congressional Brieng on the Crime Commission,
go to cebcp.org/outreach-symposia-and-briengs/crime-commission. To
read all of the articles from the special issue of Criminology and Public
Policy, go to onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/17459133/2018/17/2.
e Distinguished Achievement Award in
Evidence-Based Crime Policy 2018 Recipients
Congratulations to the recipients of the 2018 Distinguished Achievement Award in Evidence-Based
Crime Policy, Chief James Bueermann and Professor Edmund F. McGarrell. In this feature, we asked
both to share their thoughts about their lifelong eorts in evidence-based crime policy.
James Bueermann is the President of the Police Foundation. He
was formerly the Chief of the Redlands, California, Police Department.
W
hile I believe there to be more deserving practitioners
than myself, I am humbled, and extremely appreciative,
of the Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy’s grant-
ing me one of its two 2018 Distinguished Achievement Awards. I’d
like to congratulate my fellow award winner, Dr. Ed McGarrell, a
distinguished researcher and wonderful person to boot!
If I have seen farther in the world of evidence-based policing than
expected, it is only because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.
ese include the men and women of the Redlands Police
Department, the Police Foundation, and the American Society of
Evidence-Based Policing. ey include legends in criminology, crimi-
nal justice practice, and community members: David Weisburd,
Larry Sherman, Geo Alpert, Steve Mastrofski, Joan Petersilia,
Cynthia Lum, Phil Go, Raphael Ward, Mark Bush, Lew Nelson,
Tom Fitzmaurice, Bob Brickley, Bill Tafoya, Al Gore, Jeremy Travis,
Susan Herman, Mark Kroeker, Joe Brann, Ron Davis, Barney
Melekian, Luis Alvitrez, Bart Beltran, Gilbert Gil, Enrique Martinez,
Anthony Green, and Felix Jones. ey have each taught me treasured
lessons and helped me discover a wide breadth of perspectives of the
world in which I have worked for 40 years. For that, I will always
nd myself in their debt.
My personal journey into evidence-based practices began in 1966
when I was 10 years old. I had somehow talked my parents into buy-
ing me a Red Ryder BB gun and was the envy of my neighborhood
cohort. While camping with my family, I decided to engage in one of
my earliest experiments.
Like most 10-year-old boys armed with a BB gun, I would shoot at
almost anything—sticks, rocks, plants, and birds—without any regard
for the harm I caused. During one of my hunting expeditions, I posed
the following hypothesis: A living thing shot with my BB gun does
not really feel much pain. is obviously served to rationalize my tak-
ing shots at any and all things.
To test this hypothesis, I created a methodology that was simple
and direct. I would simply shoot myself in my foot to see if it hurt.
I reasoned that my Keds tennis shoes would replicate the natural
protection small animals had in the way of feathers or scales. is
research design would give me immediate
feedback, which I could use to advance the
use of my cherished Red Ryder. It was
action research at its nest.
I can report, with scientic certainty,
that shooting yourself in the foot with
a Red Ryder BB gun does, in fact, really
hurt! My hypothesis was disproven.
is experiment taught me two things.
First, I had been causing harm to innocent
animals without really recognizing that I was
doing so—I never shot at another animal. And second, through
experimentation, I could better understand my world and make it a
better place.
I realize now that this lesson served to frame how I approached my
eventual calling in life. As a young patrol ocer in 1980, I conducted
research for my master’s degree in my department to try and deter-
mine if there were dierences in the perceptions between line ocers
and their supervisors about what motivated the ocers to work (there
were). But I did not really understand the value of policing research to
the eld and communities at the time. at epiphany hit me in 1998
after reading Professor Larry Sherman’s seminal article on the subject,
aptly titled “Evidence-Based Policing.” I’m very proud of the fact that
this is a Police Foundation Ideas in American Policing publication
(available at www.policefoundation.org).
From that point onward, I have tried to be a vocal champion of evi-
dence-based policing and all it entails. I believe it is a principled way
policing can fulll three sacred mandates: First, while trying to serve
and protect our communities, do no harm (this is policing’s version of
the Hippocratic Oath); second, use scientic methods to understand
and incorporate community perspectives on crime control and police
legitimacy; and third, be good stewards of the taxpayer investment in
public safety by constantly evaluating the eectiveness of the programs
and practices aimed at controlling crime and disorder.
During the 13 years I was the police chief in my department, we
conducted multiple randomized controlled trials. ese were invalu-
able to our agency and caused us to alter our way of doing business.
I believe it is incumbent upon researchers, practitioners, and com-
munity members to help advance our collective understanding of the
Fall 2018 | TRANSLATIONAL CRIMINOLOGY 19
James Bueermann
complicated world of policing. In addition to the topics already on
policing’s radar screen, we must focus on disruptive technologies like
articial intelligence, facial recognition, predictive analytics, and vir-
tual reality. We must better understand the way in which social
media informs the public’s perception of crime control, race, and
police use of force. We need to help the police own evidence-based
principles and anchor them to the culture of policing. And nally,
research should help the police and policymakers better understand
the unintended consequences of well-intended strategies to control
crime and disorder that ultimately inict harm on the very people
the police are paid to protect.
As our world continues to change at an ever-increasing rate, the
use of the best available evidence to drive public safety policy and
practice, and the persistent evaluation of those practices to gauge
their eectiveness and potential for harm, must become a fundamen-
tal underpinning of our quest to enhance the public’s trust and con-
dence in the police.
Edmund F. McGarrell is a professor in
the School of Criminal Justice at Michigan
State University. He is director of the Michigan
Justice Statistics Center.
O
ne of the most important develop-
ments in criminology and criminal
justice has been the move toward
evidence-based and evidence-informed
policy and practice. ese were terms I do
not recall hearing as a graduate student and cannot really pinpoint
when they started being used regularly in our eld. Clearly, the work
of the Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy has been central to
developing the research base of evidence-based crime policy and for
cementing these concepts among criminal justice professionals, poli-
cymakers, and researchers. It is particularly humbling to accept this
award given the esteem I have for the Center for Evidence-Based
Crime Policy.
It is also particularly rewarding to receive the award from center
fellow Laurie O. Robinson. As assistant attorney general leading the
Oce of Justice Programs (OJP), Laurie was integral in supporting
the development of evidence-based crime policy and translational
criminology. In her role as professor at George Mason University
and with the center, she embodies the integration of practice
and research.
Speaking of OJP, I want to express my sincere appreciation to the
Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), the Bureau of Justice Statistics
(BJS), and the National Institute of Justice (NIJ). e support of
these agencies, to both the worlds of practice and of research, has
been critical for developing researcher-practitioner collaboration
and for the evidence base that has largely developed over the last few
decades. Whatever contributions I have made have been possible
because of the support from BJA, BJS, and NIJ.
A Personal Journey to Translational Research
and Evidence-Based Practice
Like many new academic criminologists, my “pre-tenure” focus was
on developing my own set of research questions, conducting research,
and producing articles largely of interest to a specialized group of
CEBCP’s Charlotte Gill, David Weisburd, Laurie O. Robinson, and the 2018 award winners, Ed McGarrell and Jim Bueermann.
20 www.cebcp.org
Edmund F. McGarrell
scholars. Although [I was] always interested in how this research con-
nected to practice, in reality there was a signicant gap between these
research products and the world of practice.
My commitment to evidence-based policy and the translation of
research to practice emerged due to unforeseen opportunities that
arose through collaboration with the Spokane (Washington) Police
Department. is was in the early days of community and problem-
oriented policing. To the credit of former chief Terry Mangan and his
command sta, the department came to the university asking for
assistance in understanding the perceptions of both the citizens they
were serving, as well as the personnel within the police department.
Among a variety of research activities, we conducted surveys in both
the community and the department.
As I did a little bit of background research, one of the things that
struck me was the consistent nding that a key source of motivation
for most police ocers was the opportunity to contribute to the well-
being of the community they serve (Lord and Friday, 2003; White et
al., 2010).
e second experience during this same period was an outgrowth
of my rst NIJ grant. is was a study of crime in a relatively small
public housing complex in Spokane. is was a facility that served
primarily elderly and disabled people. Here, a data collection activity
became an eye-opening experience as I spent time talking with resi-
dents in their apartments. e consistent theme was that while they
very much appreciated their apartments and their friends and neigh-
bors that lived within their self-contained facility, they were afraid to
leave the complex. I would leave those meetings feeling depressed
that people had to live in these conditions that Wes Skogan later
described as the crime-disorder-fear cycle (Skogan, 1990).
e good news was that a collaborative, place-based, problem-solv-
ing eort had measurable impacts on crime, disorder, and fear, and
the residents expressed improved quality of life, reduced fear, and
great appreciation for the police (McGarrell et al., 1999).
Since that time, I have been fortunate to work collaboratively with
police, prosecutors, probation and parole ocers, and community
partners in a number of communities. Consistently, I am impressed
with the commitment of the police and other criminal justice actors
to public safety and the health of the communities they serve. Simi-
larly, I see community members who are committed to the well-
being of their communities. Indeed, in cities like Detroit and Flint,
Michigan, that have experienced years of economic disinvestment, I
am continually struck by the resiliency of both the criminal justice
practitioners and community members with whom I am privileged
to work.
The Rewards of Translational Criminology
It is to this intersection of the sense of public service among crimi-
nal justice practitioners with the commitment of local residents to
their communities, that the work of the Center for Evidence-Based
Crime Policy makes such important contributions. Whether it is pro-
ducing evidence, helping our partners link to evidence-based and evi-
dence-informed policy, or working collaboratively in researcher-prac-
titioner partnerships, we researchers can support the commitment to
public safety and community revitalization found among our crimi-
nal justice and community partners. In doing so, there is also the sat-
isfaction of knowing our research may also contribute to public safety
and justice. Of course, as people like David Weisburd, Charlotte Gill,
Chris Koper, Cynthia Lum, and their colleagues at the center have
shown, it can also lead to research of great impact.
With respect to this much appreciated award, I also want to thank
my family, as well as my mentors, colleagues, and students with
whom I have been able to work. Our collaboration has strengthened
my scholarship and certainly enriched my life. Finally, I want to
thank the numerous criminal justice partners who have allowed me
to come into their worlds and make the connection between research
and practice. Your professionalism and dedication are an inspiration.
References
Lord, V., & Friday, P. (2003). Choosing a career in police work: A
comparative study between applications for employment with a
large police department and public high school students. Police
Practice and Research, 4, 63-78.
McGarrell, E. F., Giacomazzi, A.L., & urman, Q.C. (1999).
Reducing disorder, fear, and crime in public housing: A case study
of place-specic crime prevention. Justice Research and Policy, 1(2),
61-87.
Skogan, W. G. (1990). Disorder and decline: Crime and the spiral
of decay in American neighborhoods. Berkeley: University of
California Press.
White, M., Cooper, J., Saunders, J., & Raganella, A. (2010).
Motivations for becoming a police ocer: Re-assessing ocer
attitudes and job satisfaction after six years on the street.
Journal of Criminal Justice, 38(4), 520-530.
Fall 2018 | TRANSLATIONAL CRIMINOLOGY 21
2018 Evidence-Based Policing
Hall of Fame Inductees
e Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy (CEBCP) inducted two new members this year into the
Evidence-Based Policing Hall of Fame. ey are Sergeant Jeery Egge of the Minneapolis (Minnesota) Police
Department and Detective Inspector Michael Newman of the Queensland (Australia) Police Service.
e Hall of Fame recognizes innovative law enforcement practitioners who have been central to the
implementation of a high-quality research program in their agency and who also are relentless champions of
institutionalizing evidence-based practices. Each inductee contributes a statement in the hall as a learning
and teaching opportunity for others to gain ideas from. We highlight those statements here.
Statement from Sergeant Jeery Egge
T
his is an important recognition
for practitioners in our eld,
and I want to thank the CEBCP
and Drs. Koper, Lum, and Weisburd.
If leadership is the process of inuencing
people by providing purpose, direction, and
motivation, then studies, experiments, and
assessments are the foundation for improv-
ing the organization and accomplishing
the mission.
Starting out in private security exposed me to extensive uses of
data to work better, focus, and achieve measurable results. Being a
part of CompStat, from its inception in Minneapolis, as a deployed
police resource, an intelligence gatherer, tactical leader, and analyst,
I was able to determine how the components could work better
together. In the 18 years since we started using a data-driven
approach in Minneapolis, the overall crime reduction throughout
the city has been 36.72 percent.
Starting with my collaborations with the Police Executive Research
Forum, where I served as a research fellow, I was given an opportunity
to bring my agency back to its roots in the 1980s as a laboratory for
research. I saw the need and benets of research translation and
embraced the Matrix Demonstration Project here at the CEBCP. And
now as an NIJ LEADS [National Institute of Justice Law Enforce-
ment Advancing Data and Science] scholar, among so many young,
talented, and smart police practitioners advancing data and science,
I’m fortunate to have a seat at the table as we challenge outdated, con-
ventional policing paradigms with data-driven solutions and practices.
Amid the daily chaos of calls, crimes, and conict, it is critical for
police leadership to have a solid foundation of factual knowledge from
systematic truth. As a profession, we are still mired in individual inci-
dents and events. From top to bottom, the tendency to handle one
911 call after another prevails. Research has been easily discarded
because it’s too complex and time–consuming. But we should never
lose sight of the bigger picture and what we can build and achieve
with data and science.
When practitioners are given an opportunity to focus on policing
problems through the lens of science, it can foster an aptitude for
making further discoveries and innovations. When research and evalu-
ation are relevant to the agency mission, the work benets from
greater urgency, mandate, integration, and sustainability within the
agency. Crime analysis plays an integral part. In collaboration with
some of the leading criminologists of the day, for example, we learned
that roughly 8 percent of all city blocks in Minneapolis accounted for
about two-thirds, or 64 percent, of the city’s shootings, reinforcing
our belief in and informing our strategies for a more proactive, place-
based, problem-solving focus.
e transformational aspects of research are sometimes short-lived
in a police organization. But when sworn police and civilian employ-
ees have personal ownership and involvement in studies, experiments,
and assessments, it improves their skills and abilities to carry forward
and transform the culture in their organizations through changes in
policing leadership and societal norms.
For the better part of 30 years, I have believed that the best way to
make progress in my profession is from within. I have had the plea-
sure of working with colleagues strongly dedicated to this pursuit
from the CEBCP and PERF [Police Executive Research Program], as
well as NIJ LEADS scholars, crime analysts, and criminologists from
across the world. eir eorts inspired me to pursue evidence-based
policing with a passion for improving police eciency and advancing
public safety.
I’ve dedicated my life’s work toward crime ghting and discovered
the value of data, science, and research translation in improving police
initiatives and strategies. However, this recognition came as a surprise
22 www.cebcp.org
Jeffery Egge
and is humbling and motivating. It would not have been possible
without the hard work of the sworn and civilian employees of the
Minneapolis Police Department. I want to thank the chiefs I have
worked for: Robert K. Olson, who hired and promoted me, Tim
Dolan, Janee Harteau, and Medaria Arradondo and Mayor Betsy
Hodges have all supported, recognized, and encouraged the work
of my team over the years.
Statement from Detective Inspector
Michael Newman
D
uring my 26-year policing career I
have served in a variety of roles,
both operational and corporate. In
each application for promotion, I provided
examples and “evidence” of how the dier-
ent strategies I had used had led to a reduc-
tion in crime. At the time, and in my
naïveté, I did not realize how unlikely my
“evidence” was actually linked to meaningful crime reduction. Yet,
after a chance opportunity to get involved in an evidence-based polic-
ing (EBP) project more than six years ago, I have changed my entire
approach to policing, challenging myself to move beyond poor quality
evaluations and incorporate more rigor into assessing whether or not
our policing strategies actually reduce crime and harm.
My rst exposure to this was as the project manager for the Mobile
CEBCP’s Cynthia Lum (left) and Christopher Koper (right) with 2018 inductees Jeffery Egge and Michael Newman (middle).
Police Community Oce (MPCO) Project, where as a practitioner,
I was involved with researchers from the University of Queensland
(UQ). is partnership provided me with critical insight into the
design and methodology required by researchers to rigorously evaluate
a strategy. It further provided me the opportunity to highlight the
operational needs specic to our agency. is partnership approach
proved to be highly successful in commencing EBP projects while I
was the Evidence-Based Policing Visiting Fellow at the University of
Queensland in 2016-17. e results from this experiment led to the
purchase of a second MPCO, and both vehicles are regularly used
throughout Brisbane, Australia.
To develop the evidence, we need to “upskill” our people. To this
end, I coordinated for the delivery of 10 EBP workshops, in conjunc-
tion with the University of Queensland, that are designed to facilitate
the promulgation of EBP across the various regions and commands
within the Queensland Police Service (QPS). As a result of promoting
these workshops to the executive leadership team, interest was gener-
ated for a further eight workshops to be conducted by June 2018.
ese workshops run for around three hours and can cater up to
30 people at a time. e participants get exposure to EBP and are
given an understanding of its importance, shown how and where they
can access this evidence (other than just a Google search), given exam-
ples of where the QPS has undertaken EBP projects, and given the
opportunity, as a table group, to identify an issue that is relevant to
them and develop an intervention that can be rigorously evaluated
and added to the evidence base. In short, by exposing participants to
these initial concepts, these workshops seek to foster the capacity for
in-house evaluations into the future. rough these workshops and
Fall 2018 | TRANSLATIONAL CRIMINOLOGY 23
Michael Newman
my role at UQ, I became a broker for advanced EBP within the QPS.
In my role as the EBP broker, I have been well positioned to iden-
tify, support, mentor, and promote the development of EBP projects
that support QPS strategic objectives. Further to this, as the EBP
Visiting Fellow and also a facilitator in the EBP workshops, I was able
to identify robust EBP projects, codevelop the design and methodol-
ogy, negotiate with key stakeholders within the QPS and academia,
and support and mentor the ocers to enable the projects to come to
fruition. I was also able to generate interest in research topics to assist
undergraduate students, provide them with an opportunity to work
with police, and research topics of immediate interest to police with
the ability to be immediately translated into policy.
is approach has led to a number of EBP trials being undertaken
within the QPS on a variety of topics, including
• reducing drug supply in inner-city hotel accommodation providers;
• applying a new approach to the delivery of detective training;
• promoting investigative best practice into adult sexual assault
complaints;
• exploring the impact of a scripted crime message during a standard
random breath test to determine if the process could reduce
victimization;
• testing whether a procedurally just conversation with a senior police
ocer can inuence future oender behavior;
• enhancing gender diversity in QPS recruiting;
• examining public perception of police uniforms; and
• evaluating a mental health co-responder model.
e visiting fellow role at UQ further provided me the opportunity
to broker experiments and work collaboratively with researchers in a
range of areas, such as:
• examining the level to which EBP has penetrated and been
accepted in the QPS and Western Australian Police (WAPol);
• developing and delivering three one-day procedural justice training
workshops for the Royal ai Police on behalf of the Global Road
Safety Partnership;
• contributing to reports and papers;
• assisting PhD students and networking them with appropriate con-
tacts within the QPS; and
• revisiting the original analysis of the MPCO and developing the
Queensland Crime Impact Score (QCIS) to examine the results
from a dierent perspective.
I believe that by combining our police experience (or our craft)
with the use of valid scientic methods, we can foster innovation and
professionalism in policing.
e appetite for practitioner-led policing research is high. A num-
ber of societies of evidence-based policing have been formed around
the world, starting with the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, the
United States, and Spain. e mission of these societies is to develop,
disseminate, and advocate for police to use scientic research to guide
best practices in all aspects of policing. ey are collectives of indi-
viduals mutually committed to evidence-based policing. ey have
been created to advocate for and support research and to promulgate
new knowledge. Membership, numbering in the thousands, primar-
ily comprises police ocers. Perhaps this level of uptake further dem-
onstrates the desire of police ocers to embrace research and ques-
tion historical practice. It also is an attempt by police ocers and
their respective agencies to take ownership of the profession of polic-
ing or the science of the profession.
For more information about all of the inductees in the Hall of Fame,
visit cebcp.org/hall-of-fame.
24 www.cebcp.org
Utilizing Data continued from page 13
ation of the intervention. Although we are just over halfway through
the rst year of the project, and data has not yet been analyzed in
the aggregate, there are strong early indicators that the intervention
is having success. Ocers have been willing to try a new approach
and have successfully completed almost 5,000 extra visits to these
locations in the rst half of 2018. It is hoped that a long-term
evaluation will show this eort can not only make a dierence in
fatality crashes, but also be an example of research-practitioner
teams working together to address problems in rural communities.
I also hope that this work empowers others to think creatively about
how science and data can be applied to their specic concerns and
to better law enforcement as a whole.
Translating Science in Film: e Science
& Entertainment Exchange of the National
Academy of Sciences
BY ANN MERCHANT AND ANA SALCEDA
Ann Merchant is deputy executive director in the Oce of
Communications at the National Academy of Sciences.
Ana Salceda is a documentary lmmaker and journalist,
and executive director of BelugaSmile Productions LLC.
purely social dynamic and the storytelling activities that are directed
and workshopped. Much of the agenda is devoted to 14-minute pre-
sentations made by the science and engineering professionals. is
provides the lmmakers with a specic window into the world of sci-
ence with which they are generally unfamiliar.
Presentations are punctuated by panel discussions that bring the
lmmakers together to discuss specic challenges in telling complex
stories that will engage audiences. Both the formal and informal seg-
ments of the agenda are meant to generate a sense of community that
builds over the course of the retreat weekend. e nal collaborative
opportunity is relatively free-form and provides lmmakers a chance
to make “appointments” with three of the scientists to engage more
deeply on an individual basis in order to review specic questions
they may have.
e retreats began as a way to connect members of the creative
community who focus primarily on narrative (ctional) dramas that
appear in lm and television. e rst Exchange retreat was for writers
and took place in 2014. Four additional retreats followed for this
same cohort of entertainment industry professionals. Because the
retreat model proved to be especially successful in creating a special
kind of synergy that produced meaningful interaction and resulted in
connections that yielded impact, e Exchange believed that it was
important to apply the format to other groups from the entertain-
ment industry. Given that we are experiencing a golden age of docu-
mentary lm, it seemed appropriate to apply the retreat model to
documentarians.
2
Once a quiet, niche market of content appealing to
a narrow audience, documentaries now represent a lively abundance
of topics that are regularly binge-watched on streaming services and
appeal to a diverse set of audiences. Accordingly, in September 2016,
e Exchange convened its rst retreat for documentary lmmakers,
casting a wide net to bring together 15 lmmakers, many of whom
T
he Science & Entertainment Exchange (e Exchange), a
program of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), con-
nects entertainment industry professionals with top scientists
to create a synergy between realistic science and engaging entertain-
ment. e Exchange’s parent organization, the NAS, was chartered by
Congress in 1863 under an act signed by Abraham Lincoln to provide
crucial scientic advice to the nation. As a private, nonprot institu-
tion and the most prestigious honoric science academy in the United
States, the NAS is privileged to draw on the expertise of thousands of
scientists and engineers.
Leveraging this wealth of expertise to facilitate conversations with
content creators will enable those creators to catalyze more storytelling
grounded in authentic science; encourage a richer, more diverse depic-
tion of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics)
characters in order to challenge traditional stereotypes; and inspire
new media projects driven by science and engineering themes. By
using the vehicle of popular entertainment media to deliver some-
times subtle, but nevertheless powerful, messages to downstream audi-
ences, scientists have access to translational tools to communicate key
messages and express their passion for science.
e Exchange achieves this synergy in a number of ways. In addi-
tion to its regular events programming, funding from Howard
Hughes Medical Institute and Science Sandbox—an initiative of the
Simons Foundation—allow e Exchange to host weekend retreats
for its stakeholders. ese retreats typically cover 12 to 15 dierent
topics in science and engineering (including a focus on crime and jus-
tice at the 2017 Documentary Filmmakers Retreat),
1
providing a trea-
sure trove of science inspiration for the lmmakers and, simultane-
ously, essential insights for scientists to think dierently about how to
communicate their work.
e retreat agenda is both full and interactive. It is purposefully
composed to ensure that participants quickly get to know one another
and immediately begin to collaborate. ere is equal emphasis on the
1 Cynthia Lum, director of the Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy,
represented criminology this past year.
2 See www.theguardian.com/lm/2016/nov/14/golden-age-of-
documentaries-michael-moore-amy-making-a-murderer.
Fall 2018 | TRANSLATIONAL CRIMINOLOGY 25
had not previously focused on science as a source of inspiration.
Building on the success of that initial engagement, e Exchange
reconvened in October 2017, bringing a new group of scientists and
documentarians together at the NAS facility in Woods Hole, Massa-
chusetts. Again, e Exchange invited a number of lmmakers who
had not previously sought inspiration in STEM. Rather than preach
to the choir, the goal was to inuence talented lmmakers who were
new to science. Indeed, the retreat may have been the rst time that
many of the lmmakers spent any amount of time with a scientist
or engineer.
While the science to which they were exposed was clearly important
to the agenda, the general interaction between scientists and lmmak-
ers was a critical feature of the retreat. Indeed, 90 percent of the
respondents characterized the 2017 retreat as a “fantastic experience”
that they would be “eager to repeat.” One participant summarized a
mutual feeling between scientists and lmmakers alike, saying “Kapow
to the brain—new ideas, new ways of thinking and expressing, new
collaborations. Who knew?”
Reections from Ana Salceda, lmmaker and participant
in The Exchange retreats
e traditional relationship between documentary lmmakers and
scientists is one where the latter serves as a source of information and
corroboration for the stories that lmmakers, producers, and broad-
casters want to tell. is relationship is somewhat lopsided and
unfolds in a ratings-driven media landscape focused on transmitting
content 24/7 and keeping the gears of social media platforms well-
greased. It’s not an environment that is always conducive for thought-
ful exchange. Despite the best intentions of an industry of creative
people who want to make a dierence, the editorial scales are too
often tipped away from quality and toward volume, and the need to
attract big audiences can carry the day.
e Exchange retreats create opportunities for lmmakers and sci-
entists to work together as true collaborators. ey provide the time
and space for the exchange of ideas so that both lmmakers and scien-
tists can discuss such issues as what topics are important to them and
why; their views on what makes a good story; ethics in storytelling;
innovative ways to communicate; and the challenges both groups face
among their institutional peers—among other topics. Simply put,
both groups have the opportunity to get to know each other in ways
that otherwise wouldn’t happen. Furthermore, the facilitators of the
retreat constantly push participants out of their comfort zones and
challenge them to think dierently through creative exercises, such as
role-reversal and speed pitching. ese and other activities break
down barriers, establish common ground, and unite lmmakers and
scientists as members of the same team. In many ways, lmmakers
and scientists are kindred spirits, members of the same tribe who were
long ago separated and can nd each other through e Exchange.
As a journalist, I’ve always been interested in taking the time to tell
complex, interdisciplinary stories. However, over the years, my work
in the industry has limited my capacity to do what comes naturally to
me. e Exchange in general, and the retreat in particular, encouraged
me to go back to my roots and dare to tell richer and more complex
stories. But perhaps what is more signicant is that the retreat chal-
lenged me to reconsider the nuts-and-bolts and the infrastructure that
I put in place to do my work.
For example, my primary partner in my current project is a scien-
tist, William Heyman, PhD. His life’s work focuses on the mysteries
behind sh spawning aggregations sites (FSAs), and his 30-year cru-
sade to protect them in the Wider Caribbean Region is my source of
inspiration. Will and I have spent countless hours working together.
We’ve discussed the relevance of our story to other scientists, to stake-
holders in the regions (such as shermen and conservation organiza-
tions), and to the general public.
As a result of our collaboration, our project—called Big Fish—has
grown because we recognized the relevance of the story to dierent
audiences, and that, by working together, we can have a greater impact
through our work. Yes, we are developing a documentary lm for a
broad audience, but we are also developing communication tools that
will unite scientists from six countries who are working toward com-
mon goals but who didn’t recognize they were part of one story.
rough our work we are producing storytelling products to attract
citizen scientists and grow a constituency for FSAs, and we are telling
our story to policy experts with the hope of protecting FSAs as scien-
tists, shermen, and everyday citizens race to study them. e scien-
tist-documentarian collaboration also makes Big Fish more than just a
documentary; the project is multidisciplinary, covering scientic elds
such as oceanography, marine biology, zoology, economics, social sci-
ence, sheries, and conservation management.
With an impressive network of collaborators, e Exchange opened
a window of innite possibilities for me. It also changed my conceptu-
alization of what makes for a successful project: to tell stories that not
only serve the general public, but also the needs of scientists, local
communities, and the organizations focused on science-based policy.
It’s both top-down and bottom-up storytelling. In addition to the way
that I now approach my projects in terms of content, structure, and
partnerships, e Exchange has provided something else: a commu-
nity of people who share my interests and a network that I can rely on.
anks in part to the restless energy of the lm community and
the proliferation of platforms, we’re witnessing an unprecedented
diversication of audiences, and the public is more receptive than ever
to watching documentaries. Broadcasters, too, are looking for more
sophisticated programming. e Exchange is a catalyst, helping to
push the evolution of documentary lm by creating a burgeoning
network of lmmakers, scientists, media experts, and funders that
share the goal of telling complex, fascinating stories that engage and
enlighten a growing audience. e Exchange is ahead of the curve.
26 www.cebcp.org
Continued on page 31
Proactive Policing’s Eects on Crime
and Communities
BY DAVID WEISBURD AND MALAY K. MAJMUNDAR
David Weisburd is distinguished professor of Criminology, Law
and Society at George Mason University and executive director of
the Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy.
Malay K. Majmundar is a study director at the National Academies
of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
P
roactive policing emerged in the 1980s as a reaction to concerns
about crime control and relations between the police and the
community. It diered in approach from the standard models of
policing in its focus on being proactive rather than reactive in dealing
with the problems that police must address. Proactive policing strate-
gies are widely used across the landscape of American policing.
e United States is currently facing another period of public con-
cern about the behaviors of police. Instances of perceived or actual
police misconduct have given rise to nationwide protests against unfair
and abusive police practices. Because of this, it is not enough to exam-
ine the impacts of proactive policing on crime and disorder. Consider-
ation also must be given to the impacts of proactive policing on com-
munity perceptions of the police, the legality of policing, potential
abuses of police authority, and the equitable application of police ser-
vices in the everyday lives of citizens.
e National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s
Committee on Law and Justice was tasked by the National Institute of
Justice and the Laura and John Arnold Foundation with assessing the
application and results of specic proactive policing strategies. e
study committee of sociologists, criminologists, legal scholars, econo-
mists, statisticians, psychologists, and law enforcement professionals
examined the strategies’ impacts on crime, whether they are being used
in a legal fashion, whether they are applied in a discriminatory manner,
and the reactions of communities.
e committee dened proactive policing as “all policing strategies
that have as one of their goals the prevention or reduction of crime and
disorder, and that are not reactive in terms of focusing primarily on
uncovering ongoing crime or on investigating or responding to crimes
once they have occurred.” e committee report focused on organiza-
tional strategies, not decisions of individual ocers.
Examining Approaches to Proactive Policing
e committee found evidence that a number of proactive policing
practices are having an impact on reducing crime and disorder, at least
in the short term, and most of the strategies implemented do not harm
communities’ attitudes toward police. Over the past two decades,
David Weisburd Malay K. Majmundar
proactive policing has taken a number of dierent forms that often
overlap in practice. e report focuses on the following four broad
approaches to proactive policing: place-based, problem-solving, person-
focused, and community-based interventions.
Place-based strategies capitalize on the growing research base that
shows that crime is concentrated at specic micro-geographic places
within a city, such as street segments or clusters of street segments.
ese strategies seek to utilize policing resources more eciently to
reduce crime. is approach includes
• Hot spots policing—a practice where police focus on locations
where crime is concentrated—produces crime reduction eects
without simply displacing crime into surrounding areas. Indeed, the
evidence available suggests that nearby areas also experience crime
reductions (often termed “diusion of benets”).
• Predictive policing uses sophisticated computer algorithms to predict
changing patterns of future crime, but there is insucient evidence
to support a rm conclusion for or against the ecacy of crime-pre-
diction software or associated police response tactics.
• Closed circuit television (CCTV) is thought to create a general
deterrent eect on crime by increasing an oender’s perceived risk of
being identied or apprehended for criminal activity. Studies exam-
ining the use of CCTV are mixed but tend to show modest out-
comes in terms of reducing property crime at high-crime locations.
For proactive uses of CCTV, there are insucient studies to draw
conclusions about their impact on crime and disorder.
Problem-solving strategies focus on identifying the underlying prob-
lems that produce crime and disorder incidents. Approaches include
• Problem-oriented policing seeks to identify and analyze the under-
lying causes of crime problems and respond using a wide variety of
methods and tactics, from improving lighting and repairing fences
to cleaning up parks and improving recreational opportunities for
youth. While this strategy has been popular, there are surprisingly
Fall 2018 | TRANSLATIONAL CRIMINOLOGY 27
few rigorous program evaluations of it. Nonetheless, a small group
of strongly designed studies show these programs lead to reductions
in crime.
• In third-party policing, police seek to persuade or coerce property
owners, business owners, public housing agencies, and other pri-
vate entities to take some responsibilities for preventing crime or
reducing crime problems. e limited available evidence supports a
conclusion that third-party policing generates reductions in crime
and disorder.
Person-focused strategies focus police eorts on the small number
of oenders who account for a large proportion of crime.
Approaches include
• Focused deterrence programs, which attempt to deter crime among
high-rate violent oenders, show consistent crime control impacts
in reducing gang violence, street crime driven by disorderly drug
markets, and repeat individual oenders. ese eorts have both
short- and long-term area-wide impacts on crime.
• Stop, question, and frisk (SQF)—stops in which suspects are ques-
tioned about their activities, frisked, and often searched—showed
mixed results when implemented as a general, citywide crime con-
trol strategy. Evaluations of focused uses of SQF targeting places
with violence or serious gun crimes and focusing on high-risk repeat
oenders consistently nd crime reduction eects.
Community-based strategies try to address and mitigate community
problems by enlisting and mobilizing the community in the preven-
tion of crime and disorder. Approaches include
• Broken windows policing—a strategy to address minor instances
of disorder before they overwhelm a neighborhood and to restore
aicted neighborhoods—generated little or no impact on crime
when applied broadly as an aggressive tactic for increasing misde-
meanor arrests. On the other hand, interventions that use place-
based, problem-solving practices to reduce social and physical
disorder show crime reduction impacts.
• Procedural justice policing seeks to impress upon citizens and the
wider community that the police exercise their authority in legiti-
mate ways, with the expectation that if citizens accord legitimacy to
police activity, they are more inclined to collaborate with police and
abide by laws. ere are a small group of studies with inconsistent
outcomes. e committee did not draw conclusions about the
eectiveness of such strategies.
• Community-oriented policing involves citizens in identifying and
addressing public safety concerns, decentralizes decision-making to
develop responses to those concerns, and works to solve them. e
existing studies do not identify a consistent crime-prevention bene-
t for these programs.
Legal Implications and Considerations
However eective a policing practice may be in preventing crime, it
is impermissible if it violates the law. In turn, even when proactive
strategies do not lead to constitutional violations, they may undermine
important legal values such as privacy, equality, and accountability.
e most important legal constraints on proactive policing are the
Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the Equal Protection
Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and
related statutory provisions. Although proactive policing strategies
do not inherently violate the Fourth Amendment, which protects
against unreasonable search and seizure, proactive strategies could
lead to violations.
SQF and “zero tolerance” versions of broken windows policing
have been linked to violations of both the Fourth Amendment
and the Equal Protection Clause by courts in private litigation
and by the U.S. Department of Justice in its investigations of police
departments. e committee found that there is limited direct
empirical evidence on the relationship between particular policing
strategies and constitutional violations.
Racial Bias and Disparities in Proactive Policing
ere are likely to be large racial disparities in the volume and nature
of police-citizen encounters in proactive policing. Existing evidence
does not establish conclusively whether and to what extent such racial
disparities are indicators of statistical prediction, racial animus,
implicit bias, or other causes.
Research is urgently needed on racial bias in proactive policing.
At present, police departments and communities lack the evidence
base to help them make informed decisions to better align behaviors
with values of equity and justice. More research on these topics is
needed to better understand the potential negative consequences of
proactive policing. e committee found the lack of data on the
possible role of racial bias in proactive policing particularly troubling.
Community Impacts
e importance of positive community relationships with the police
are broadly recognized, and the committee believed that it was critical
to assess the impacts of proactive policing on outcomes such as fear of
crime, collective ecacy, and community evaluations of police and
police legitimacy.
Emerging research suggests that while place-based proactive policing
strategies rarely have negative impacts on community outcomes, such
strategies rarely improve community perceptions of the police.
e committee could not identify credible studies of overall nega-
tive or positive outcomes of person-focused strategies on communities.
However, there are a number of studies of citizens’ personal experi-
ences with SQFs and aggressive zero tolerance tactics that show
marked negative associations between these strategies and individual
health and mental health outcomes.
Studies on problem-solving interventions show consistent small-to-
moderate positive impacts on community satisfaction with the police.
Community-oriented policing also leads to modest improvements in
the public’s view of policing and the police.
28 www.cebcp.org
Continued on page 31
BetaGov Supports Practitioners and Evaluators
in Conducting Randomized Control Trials
to Test Criminal Justice Programs
BY JUSTIN ESCAMILLA, JESSICA REICHERT, MAUREEN HILLHOUSE, AND ANGELA HAWKEN
Justin Escamilla is a research analyst at the Center for Justice Research
and Evaluation at the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority.
Jessica Reichert is a research manager at the Center for Justice Research
and Evaluation at the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority.
Maureen Hillhouse is associate director at BetaGov.
Angela Hawken is founder and director of BetaGov.
M
any elds employ researchers and others who routinely
conduct experiments using randomized control trials
(RCTs) to test daily operations to learn about and improve
their work to increase success. However, elds in the public sector,
including criminal justice, have lagged in experimentation. Testing is
pervasive in medicine, marketing, and business as part of the standard
process for decision-making and advancement. Amazon CEO Je
Bezos said his company’s success is “a function of how many experi-
ments [they] do per year, per month, per week, per day” (Simmons,
2017). Medicine, marketing, and business leaders recognize how rare it
is to get it right the rst time, and they embrace failure as a learning
opportunity (Edmondson, 2011). In the public sector, ethical con-
cerns, practicality, and a lack of knowledge are some of the barriers to
the use of RCTs (Shadish, Cook, & Campbell, 2001).
Most public policies and practices—such as how we educate our
children, deliver health care, rehabilitate convicted oenders, or house
the homeless—have one thing in common: ey have never been
empirically tested. Conducting rigorous evaluation traditionally
involves academic researchers and government funding and requires
navigating through bureaucratic red tape that makes the research di-
cult to accomplish. As a result, many commonplace policies intended
to make citizens smarter, safer, or healthier are based more on public
perception or “business as usual” than on empirical data.
Randomized Control Trials: Why Are They Important?
Randomized control trials are the scientic gold standard for program
evaluation. Evaluators employ RCTs to measure program eectiveness
by isolating the eects of programmatic conditions from other factors
that may contribute to varying outcomes among similar groups, such
as systematic bias in program participation (Shadish et al., 2001).
RCTs can help ensure government policies are eective and will help
those who need them most (Buck & McGee, 2015). Programs that
undergo RCT-based evaluations also become more attractive to grant-
makers and investors who value scientic evidence. Robust and stable
funding streams enable program adoption, expansion, and long-term
improvements.
What Is BetaGov?
BetaGov is a multidisciplinary group of academic and practice-experi-
enced researchers who help agencies explore possible improvements in
policies and practices in domains ranging from criminal justice to edu-
cation. BetaGov’s approach is unconventional by design; BetaGov
exists because conventional approaches to conceptualizing and con-
ducting research to test policies and practices can be inecient, and
the results are often irrelevant to real-world practitioners and policy-
makers. BetaGov was created to promote scientic evaluations of poli-
cies and practices via RCTs and to make these assessments the norm
rather than the exception. BetaGov’s mission is to help agencies, poli-
cymakers, and others develop, conduct, analyze, and share research on
policies and practices that aect the public they serve. Guidance from
BetaGov—provided at no cost to the end user—facilitates design
and implementation of research conducted by service agencies and
Justin Escamilla Jessica Reichert
Maureen Hillhouse Angela Hawken
Fall 2018 | TRANSLATIONAL CRIMINOLOGY 29
departments at all government levels. e goal is to signicantly
increase the pace of learning about policies pertaining to health ser-
vices, social services, criminal justice, education, and other domains;
identify promising innovations; and identify policies and practices
that are inecient or ineective.
With BetaGov’s guidance and assistance, practitioners can carry out
their own RCTs. Being able to design and implement a trial without
funding and often without regulatory hurdles means that the trial can
be more quickly conducted and completed. e private sector has long
relied on simple, pragmatic RCTs to improve eciency and perfor-
mance; BetaGov promotes the use of these same techniques to inform
policy solutions for the most challenging health and social problems.
A BetaGov Collaboration Example: Randomized Control Trial
of an Illinois Reentry Program
e Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority (ICJIA) is a state
government agency that administers federal criminal justice grants and
serves as the state’s Statistical Analysis Center for criminal justice
research. Researchers from ICJIA were recruited to evaluate a newly
established 2018 prisoner reentry program in Illinois. e program,
Pathway to Enterprise for Returning Citizens (PERC), oers entrepre-
neurship training to individuals returning to Cook County, Illinois,
communities from prison. e training focuses on how to start a busi-
ness, oers a mentor for support, and provides an opportunity to
obtain a small business loan. ere is very little research on prior entre-
preneurship reentry programs and none employing an RCT design.
e ICJIA researchers were tasked with measuring program benets.
ey sought to collect program process information
1
and use an RCT
to compare program outcomes, such as securing employment, reduc-
ing recidivism (arrest and reincarceration), and starting a business. As a
government agency with research experience but few prior opportuni-
ties to apply an RCT, ICJIA partnered with BetaGov for assistance.
BetaGov and ICJIA researchers scheduled regular conference calls to
discuss evaluation components and RCT implementation. e team
stratied applicants by prison release date and distance from PERC
training agencies, and BetaGov completed the random assignment of
program applicants into either the treatment group (PERC-trained) or
the control condition (on parole with no PERC training). With Beta-
Gov’s help, ICJIA researchers saved time while avoiding the appearance
of possible bias in participant selection.
Lessons Learned from Our Randomized Control Trial
Practitioners Should View Evaluation as a Valuable Tool
To seasoned practitioners with years of eld experience, a formal
evaluation guided by researchers may seem irrelevant. After all, most
programs make adjustments over the course of development, and
changes on the ground are easily recognized. However, even the sharp-
est practitioners may not recognize that complex external factors
1 Data included intake data, pre-tests and post-tests, exit surveys, mentor
surveys, focus groups, and interviews.
unrelated to programmatic decisions may be driving observable
changes. e scientic method employed by RCTs can most eectively
rule out external factors as the explanation for ground-level changes,
which makes an RCT evaluation an ecient and accurate way to dis-
cover whether program activities achieve the desired outcomes.
Accordingly, it saves time and resources otherwise spent on ineective
and unproven modications.
Of course, researchers must acknowledge that practitioners often
have more immediate needs. Short-term feedback, interim reports,
program updates, and troubleshooting may be required long before the
formal evaluation is completed. Researchers should confer with practi-
tioners on their needs to see what can be immediately addressed and
clearly communicate the project scope to manage expectations. e
development of methodology, data collection, and other activities
required by rigorous evaluation may take longer than what is naturally
learned throughout normal operations. However, knowledge gained
through an RCT evaluation will be based on empirically derived data
and useful in the long-term.
Examine a Program’s Mission and Goals
For an evaluation to be a truly collaborative endeavor, the mission of a
program must be reected in the evaluation design and in the outcomes
to be measured. Goals of funders, program leadership, sta, and other
core stakeholders must be aligned and suciently understood to ensure
meaningful research questions and valuable results. Establishing clear
goals can be dicult for new programs and for programs lacking consis-
tent direction from leaders, but an evaluation can be a great opportu-
nity to dene new goals or get reacquainted with original program
goals. Researchers can help construct operational denitions to accu-
rately measure the concepts most meaningful to program stakeholders.
Creating a logic model that maps how stakeholders are connected to
program activities and how those activities are connected to main goals
is a great way to align program partners. An honest, open-minded dis-
cussion about the feasibility of the program model should take place. If
the purpose and scope of a program or its evaluation is not clear to key
stakeholders before the evaluation begins, more organization and col-
laboration is needed. In the end, practitioners and researchers should be
able to provide similar answers to the questions: “What does the pro-
gram hope to achieve?” and “How will you know if that has been
achieved?”
Know How to Address Ethical Concerns and Design Issues
An RCT can be derailed by data collection barriers, mid-program
adjustments, scheduling, and study participant retention issues. A plan
should be in place to deal with these issues as they arise. However,
sometimes the very nature of an RCT can be problematic. Some stake-
holders may have concerns about randomly excluding people from a
program meant to be helpful. However, assigning people to not receive
a benecial treatment or intervention can be acceptable under the right
circumstances. No one sets out to create an ineective program, let
alone one that produces unintended negative consequences for its par-
ticipants. Good intentions, however, do not make good programs.
30 www.cebcp.org
Program sta need to be open to the idea that their programs as cur-
rently administered may be ineective, inecient, or unhelpful, especially
when their program is new or untested. e purpose of a rigorous evalua-
tion is to determine whether a program does what it aims to do so that
participants benet as intended.
Researchers must keep the principles of ethical research in focus at
all times and understand that scientic research has not always embod-
ied these principles in the past (Mandal, Acharya, & Parija, 2011; “e
Belmont Report,” 1979). Collaboration on RCTs will work best when
researchers directly address practitioner concerns and can oer practical
solutions to issues with random assignment when possible, including
assigning from a waitlist or providing alternate programming over no
programming (Shadish et al., 2001). Finally, researchers should recog-
nize when the logistics and context of a project are simply not condu-
cive to an RCT, such as when quick results are paramount, precision or
causal inference are not desired, proper planning is impossible, or if an
RCT would introduce too many complications for a budding program
to handle (Shadish et al., 2001).
Be Resilient and Continue to Advocate for RCTs in Criminal Justice
Not every part of an RCT evaluation will go smoothly, but when research-
ers are committed to a solid evaluation plan, adjustments can be made to
account for arising issues. is can be easier with the assistance of BetaGov
and other associations whose expertise and experiences allow them to help
solve evaluation problems associated with unexpected events, strained
resources, and knowledge gaps. With supportive services that speak the
language of both practice and research, researchers should feel encouraged
to advocate for more RCTs in the public sector and examine the questions
that programs really need answered. Only rigorous evaluations that ask
meaningful questions will result in evidence-based programming and sus-
tainable improvement.
References
Buck, S., & McGee, J. (2015, July). Why government needs more ran-
domized controlled trials: Refuting the myths. Laura and John Arnold
Foundation. Retrieved from https://www.arnoldfoundation.org/
wp-content/uploads/2015/07/RCT_FINAL.pdf
Edmondson, A. C. (2011). Strategies for learning from failure.
Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2011/04/
strategies-for-learning-from-failure
Mandal, J., Acharya, S., & Parija, S. C. (2011). Ethics in human
research. Tropical Parasitology, 1(1), 2–3. https://doi.org/10.4103/2229-
5070.72105
Shadish, W. R., Cook, T. D., & Campbell, D. T. (2001). Experimental
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A Final Thought
e NAS created e Exchange in recognition of the many chal-
lenges of communicating science and engineering to a wider public.
is has been a long-standing issue for scientists, who are well trained
in their own craft but often not in translating their important ndings
eectively. On the other hand, the entertainment industry reaches
enormous numbers of viewers, engaging them on important science-
related issues in ways that STEM professionals rarely have the chance
to do. e retreats serve as a genuine and unique opportunity to con-
nect a range of scientists to talented lmmakers seeking stories. e
potential connections are mutually advantageous and clearly impor-
tant. And e Exchange provides the National Academy of Sciences
with a creative approach to rethink how to translate science for our
daily lives.
For more information about the Science & Entertainment Exchange,
visit scienceandentertainmentexchange.org.
Conclusions
Proactive policing has become a key part of police eorts to combat
crime in the United States. e report by the National Academies of
Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine supports the general conclusion
that there is sucient scientic evidence to justify the adoption of
some proactive policing practices. Proactive policing eorts that focus
on high concentrations of crimes at places or among the high-rate
subset of oenders, as well as practices that seek to solve specic
crime-fostering problems, show consistent evidence of eectiveness
without evidence of negative community outcomes. Community-
based strategies have also begun to show evidence of improving
relations between the police and public.
At the same time, there are signicant gaps in the knowledge base
that do not allow one to identify with reasonable condence the long-
term eects of proactive policing. Furthermore, solid evidence is lack-
ing on the implications of proactive policing for legality and racial
bias. While much has been learned, there is still much work that needs
to be done so that police and the public can make good choices
regarding proactive policing approaches.
e full National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine con-
sensus report “Proactive Policing: Eects on Communities” can be freely
downloaded at www.nap.edu/catalog/24928/proactive-policing-eects-
on-crime-and-communities.
Fall 2018 | TRANSLATIONAL CRIMINOLOGY 31
Translating Science in Film continued from page 26
Proactive Policing’s Eects continued from page 28
32 www.cebcp.org
Fall 2018 | TRANSLATIONAL CRIMINOLOGY 33
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Fairfax, Virginia 22030
www.cebcp.org
