Reducing Crime

Latest Episodes:

#88 (Ben Bradford) Oct 30, 2025

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Ben Bradford is Professor of Global City Policing at University College London, where he is Director of the Centre for Global City Policing. He chats to Jerry Ratcliffe about police legitimacy, his research on what people want from the police, and what law enforcement leaders need to know about improving trust in policing.

#87 (Jeremy Wilson) Sep 30, 2025

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Jeremy Wilson is a Professor in the School of Criminal Justice and the Founding Director of the Police Staffing Observatory at Michigan State University. Before that, he was a Behavioral Scientist at the RAND Corporation. His chat with host Jerry Ratcliffe covers police recruitment, what is wrong with so many operational allocation models, and how the world of police staffing is changing.

#86 (Matt Bland) Aug 28, 2025

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Matt Bland is the Chief Operating Officer of the Society of Evidence-Based Policing, and an associate professor with the Police Executive Programme at the University of Cambridge. Prior to that, Dr. Bland spent a decade and a half with Norfolk and Suffolk Constabularies, in a range of intelligence and crime analyst roles. We talk about his background as police analyst, the state of EBP, and how many divorces are required to be a serious organized crime detective.

#85 (Nola Joyce) Jul 28, 2025

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Nola Joyce is a highly accomplished civilian policing professional who has served in leadership roles with the police departments of Chicago, Washington D.C., and Philadelphia where she held the rank of Deputy Commissioner. She is now a Partner and Principal Consultant for 21CP Solutions. In Chicago she helped implement the famous CAPS community policing program, and then in Philadelphia, she was instrumental in designing and evaluating key policing initiatives, such as the Philadelphia Foot Patrol Experiment and Philadelphia Policing Tactics Experiment. Her chat with host Jerry Ratcliffe discusses the role of civilian staff in policing, their mentorship and development, and the support they bring to police leaders. She emphasized the importance of balancing innovative ideas with relevance and acceptance from frontline officers.

#84 (Stacey Rothwell) Jun 30, 2025

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Stacey Rothwell is the director of innovation action across seven police forces leading ERIN, the Eastern Region Innovation Network in the UK. After a career as a sworn officer, including as a detective in financial investigation, she returned in a civilian role, pioneering the innovative use of rapid video response in domestic violence cases. She chatted to Jerry Ratcliffe at the Somers Town Coffee House to discuss her career and the challenges of getting an experiment in rapid video response up and running.

#83 (David Décary-Hétu) May 29, 2025

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David Décary-Hétu is a professor at the University of Montreal and chair of the Darknet and Anonymity Research Centre. Décary-Hétu's research focuses on studying data from offenders who use anonymity technologies like the dark web, cryptocurrencies, and encryption. He reveals that the dark web was originally developed by the military to enable anonymous communication, and that while the dark web and other anonymity technologies pose challenges for law enforcement, they are not the unbreakable havens for crime that are sometimes portrayed in media. The dark web enables new types of crime, but repeated disruptions of dark web markets can lead to some offenders becoming discouraged and quitting.

#82 (Loren Atherley) Apr 28, 2025

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Loren Atherley is the Senior Director of Performance Analytics & Research and the Senior Research Scientist for the Seattle Police Department. He emphasizes the importance of taking an incremental, gradual approach to implementing evidence-based policing. He focuses on building data curiosity and buy-in within the department by providing useful analytical products and dashboards. He advocates for hiring "pracademics" - academics with applied experience - to help bridge the gap between research and practice in policing. This allows departments to leverage rigorous methodology while still understanding the practical realities. However, Dr. Atherley also acknowledges the need for caution when applying advanced analytics and machine learning to policing.

#81 (Gina Hawkins) Mar 24, 2025

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Gina Hawkins, experienced police leader, former chief, and President of the National Association of Women Law Enforcement Executives, discusses the importance of support networks and mentorship for women in policing, especially at the executive level. She emphasizes the ‘sorority-like’ connections among women leaders that provide crucial emotional and professional support. She talks about the personal sacrifices that come with taking on leadership, the need for better mental health and wellness support for police officers, as well as the historical stigma and lack of resources around this issue. Also discussed are the barriers and biases that women, particularly women of color, face in advancing to leadership positions in policing.

#80 (Cliff Stott) Feb 24, 2025

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Jerry Ratcliffe talks to Professor Cliff Stott, a distinguished social psychologist specializing in crowd behavior, group identity, and public order policing. Stott discusses his background and early life experiences, and how this led him to study crowd psychology and develop the Elaborated Social Identity Model as an alternative to outdated mob psychology theories. Stott's work aims to debunk the myth that crowds inherently lose control and become irrational, arguing instead that crowd behavior is guided by shared social identities and norms. Instead, indiscriminate use of force by police can escalate crowd conflicts, by creating a shared identity of opposition to the police.

#79 (Kassy Alia Ray) Jan 29, 2025

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A line-of-duty death is the ultimate tragedy for a police department. Nobody likes to tempt fate, but planning ahead can make a significant difference should a catastrophe occur. After her police officer husband Greg was killed in the line of duty, Kassy Alia Ray founded the non-profit organization Serve & Connect and in this episode discusses how it fosters positive change through sustainable police-community partnerships. She also has practical proactive measures, borne of personal experience, that can help a police department navigate the unthinkable.

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