Reducing Crime

Scott Payne served in law enforcement for 28 years, primarily with the FBI in a long-term undercover capacity. We discuss his role infiltrating outlaw motorcycle gangs, sacrificing goats to gain access to white supremacist, neo-Nazi groups, and playing Lynyrd Skynyrd songs at Ku Klux Klan rallies. He also talks honestly about the mental and physical toll it took on him and his personal relationships.

Jeff Asher is a nationally recognized crime data analyst and co-founder of the data analytics firm AH Datalytics. Jeff spent years as a crime analyst with both the City of New Orleans and Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office, and prior to that he worked on spook street, as an analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency and Department of Defense. Jeff’s analyses have appeared nationally on data journalism website FiveThirtyEight, The New York Times, The Atlantic, and more. Jeff holds a MA from George Washington University and a BA from the University of Texas. We discuss the spectacular failure that has been the launch of the National Incident-Based Reporting System and how we might be able to fix it.

Art Acevedo is the interim police chief in Aurora, Colorado, and has been a chief with the California Highway Patrol, in Austin, Texas, Houston, Texas, and for a short tumultuous tenure, Miami, Florida. We talk about his career, his viral public address after the murder of George Floyd, and what needs to change in police leadership.

Stijn Ruiter is a Dutch sociologist who specializes in environmental criminology and why crime happens where it does. Since 2009, he has worked at the Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement. We chat about translating policing research across national boundaries, and in particular his role as research program leader for a new initiative – what works in policing – towards evidence-based policing in the Netherlands.

A cop for over 45 years, Bill Brooks is the chief of the Norwood, Massachusetts police department. He is also an award-winning expert on eyewitness identification and has worked closely with the Innocence Project. We discuss the police pullback, generational change in policing, and the latest approaches to eyewitness identification.

Gloria Laycock headed the Home Office Police Research Group and was founding Director of University College London’s Jill Dando Institute of Security and Crime Science – the first such institute in the world. In this masterclass on the 50-year history of crime prevention, you will learn about how the UK got its first government Police Research Group, the foundation of the Jill Dando Institute for Crime Science, the successes and failures of working in a crime prevention policy world, the importance of tackling repeat victimization as a way to reduce crime, how Laycock and the Home Office shamed car manufacturers into improving vehicle security, the crime lessons from a wobbly bridge in London, and what crime prevention success story was objected to by a government minister because it was too many syllables.

Police chief (retd.) ​Kristen Ziman joined policing as a 17-year old cadet. She spent her 30-year career with the Aurora Illinois police department during which time she was the first woman lieutenant, first woman commander, and eventually the first woman chief. During her tenure as chief, a former employee walked into one of the city’s manufacturing companies, murdered five people and subsequently injured five police officers. We talk about that event, and the lessons she learned.

Shon Barnes is the police chief in Madison, Wisconsin. A new documentary (the 54th mile policing project) follows Chief Barnes and two other black police officers as they undertake a historic civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery Alabama. Jerry Ratcliffe chats with Dr. Barnes about his embracing of education and evidence-based policing, the challenges of working with communities in the post-George Floyd world, and the lessons he took away from his three-day trek across Alabama.

Jackie Sebire retired this month as Assistant Chief Constable of Bedfordshire Police in the UK. We discuss Dr Sebire's work as a director on the UK College of Policing's Senior Command course, her time as staff officer to Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick, and important new findings she just published around independent domestic violence advisors.

Wes Skogan is emeritus professor at Northwestern University and a leading authority on community policing. He sits down with host Jerry Ratcliffe to discuss the origins and development of community policing in Chicago, the importance of case workers alongside violence interrupters, and the core components that can reinvigorate community policing.