Reducing Crime

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.

Scott Charles is the Trauma Outreach Manager for Temple University Hospital, director of the Cradle to Grave program, and coordinator of the hospital’s Trauma Victims Support Advocates program. We discuss how he came to be running these hospital-based violence interruption programs (HVIPs), how they work to change the lives of gunshot victims and young people at risk of gun crime, and what he has learned from thousands of conversations with gunshot survivors.

Dr. Jason Roach is a chartered psychologist, Professor of Psychology and Policing, and Director of the University of Huddersfield's Secure Societies Research Institute. In the podcast, we talk about some of his projects that have explored offender self-selection and trigger crimes, criminal decision-making, nudging and influencing crime prevention, and learning from offenders.

Walter Katz, Vice President of Criminal Justice for Arnold Ventures, discusses police oversight, public safety budgets, and minimizing police involved shootings. The podcast also explores the effectiveness of social workers vs police officers, the emotional toll of the criminal justice system, challenges in reducing police-involved shootings, determining consequences for mistakes in public policy, and rethinking police response to mental health problems.

Dr. Justin Nix is a distinguished associate professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Nebraska Omaha, and this year's Outstanding Young Experimental Criminologist. We chat about his research on procedural justice, police legitimacy, and the use of deadly force.