Send us Fan Mail

How good are the crime analysis centers that are a growing part of policing? I've heard a lot of stories about how analysts have made major contributions to solving crimes and tracked wanted criminals, but those are similar to the war stories police officers tell each other. They are true, but rare. So, how effective are crime analysis centers? Dr. Bradley O’Guinn, Assistant Professor in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Florida International University, joins the podcast to discuss his research titled, “Current trends in crime analysis in the state of Ohio: evaluating law enforcement agencies’ ability to adopt evidence-based policing strategies” (coauthored by Cory Haberman).

Main Topics

• Crime analysis is intended to provide systematic inquiry of data for good decision making.
• In Ohio, 67% of police agencies had no crime analysis functions.
• Improvements in analysts abilities required funding for training and standardized qualifications.

Don't forget to like, FOLLOW, and share. Sharing this podcast or an episode is one of the best complements I can receive, which will help grow the show.

And don't forget to provide a review. Giving five stars is never a bad idea.

Feel free to email me your comments using the "send us a text" option (above), or at the following email address: policeinservicetrainingpodcast@gmail.com

You can also contact me at: Bluesky: @policeinservice.bsky.social

Send us Fan Mail

The leader of an organization has a difficult task. Anyone coming up the chain in any police agency would appreciate the issues and problems of that agency. While the leadership issues of a large PD would dwarf those of a smaller department, both would have features unique to their size and location. Regardless of whether an agency is large, medium, or small, the difficulties of leadership can often get to a point that the leader pulls the plug. If this happens frequently, I would suspect that this creates its own problems for the organization itself. But I’ve been wrong before. Today we're going to talk with Dr. Tarah Hodgkinson from the Department of Criminology at Wilfrid Laurier University in Brandford, Ontario about her recent article, Churn a the top: Understanding predictors of turnover in police leadership in Canada (coauthored by Vanessa Currado).

Main Topics

• There are both plusses and minuses to police chief turnover.
• Externally hired chiefs can offer fresh eyes and new perspectives for an agency.
• Police chiefs tend to leave when they’re older, MORE educated, and when they are an internal hire.
• Chiefs tend to stick around when the population is larger and there are more females on the force.

Don't forget to like, FOLLOW, and share. Sharing this podcast or an episode is one of the best complements I can receive, which will help grow the show.

And don't forget to provide a review. Giving five stars is never a bad idea.

Feel free to email me your comments using the "send us a text" option (above), or at the following email address: policeinservicetrainingpodcast@gmail.com

You can also contact me at: Bluesky: @policeinservice.bsky.social

Send us Fan Mail

Many police officers now carry less-lethal tools, which provide police officers with the means to apprehend resistant suspects without the need for hands-on tactics or firearms. Hopefully this reduces the risk of civilian injury and death. Still, a civilian can sustain an injury from a less-lethal tool. Since most police agencies support the use of these tools, why not use the one that works but also reduces the risk of civilian injury? Dr. Keven Petersen from the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte joins the podcast to discuss his recent study, “Less‑Lethal Weapons and Civilian Injury in Police Use of Force Encounters: A Multi‑agency Analysis,” coauthored by Christopher S. Koper, Bruce G. Taylor, Weiwei Liu and Jackie Sheridan‑Johnson.

Main Topics

• An officer’s use of force is linked to police-community relations.
• Ranking the different less-lethal force tools on the force continuum remains challenging.
• Chemical agents appear to cause the least harm to civilians.
• The impact on officer’s safety remains important.

Don't forget to like, FOLLOW, and share. Sharing this podcast or an episode is one of the best complements I can receive, which will help grow the show.

And don't forget to provide a review. Giving five stars is never a bad idea.

Feel free to email me your comments using the "send us a text" option (above), or at the following email address: policeinservicetrainingpodcast@gmail.com

You can also contact me at: Bluesky: @policeinservice.bsky.social

Send us Fan Mail

Gunshot detections systems work. No, gunshot detection systems don’t work. Can we have it both ways? It’s kind of like the first line in A Tale of Two Cities: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Well? Which is it? This week we’ll be discussing Gunshot Detection Systems and the impact on evidence collection and crime. Dr. Eric Piza, the Lipman Family Professor of Criminology & Criminal Justice and Director of Crime Analysis Initiatives at Northeastern University, joins the podcast to discuss his 2024 study, “Gunshot detection technology effect on gun violence in Kansas City, Missouri: A microsynthetic control evaluation, coauthored by David N. Hatten, George O. Mohler, Jeremy G. Carter, and Jisoo Cho.

Main Topics

• The price tag for a gunshot detection system (GDS) can get very expensive very quickly.
• The use of a gunshot detection system was associated with higher levels of ballistic evidence collection in the GDS target area and surrounding location.
• The GDS did not influence any of the gun violence categories involving confirmed victims (i.e., fatal and non-fatal, shootings, aggravated assaults).
• We also get into the political aspects of research, and the role of an academic in policy debates.

Don't forget to like, FOLLOW, and share. Sharing this podcast or an episode is one of the best complements I can receive, which will help grow the show.

And don't forget to provide a review. Giving five stars is never a bad idea.

Feel free to email me your comments using the "send us a text" option (above), or at the following email address: policeinservicetrainingpodcast@gmail.com

You can also contact me at: Bluesky: @policeinservice.bsky.social

Send us Fan Mail

Spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on an unproven tool is wasteful, and Artificial Intelligence equipment for policing can be just such an expensive outlay. While there is a growing body of research showing the AI benefits and limits within policing, the jury is still out on its overall utility. Professor Ian Adams joins the podcast to discuss his paper titled, “Improving police behavior through artificial intelligence: Pre-registered experimental results in two large US agencies,” published in Criminology (coauthored by Kyle McLean and Geoff Alpert).

Main Topics

• Using AI to audit body camera transcripts, there was an 80% increase in professional behavior in an already professional department.
• Substandard behavior was significantly reduced in a department with existing problems.
• The improved behavior may not be a change in the hearts of officers, but better is still better.

Don't forget to like, FOLLOW, and share. Sharing this podcast or an episode is one of the best complements I can receive, which will help grow the show.

And don't forget to provide a review. Giving five stars is never a bad idea.

Feel free to email me your comments using the "send us a text" option (above), or at the following email address: policeinservicetrainingpodcast@gmail.com

You can also contact me at: Bluesky: @policeinservice.bsky.social

Send us Fan Mail

Almost 25% of guns are used multiple times at or very close to the same place or reused within a relatively short period of time. Just like “hot spots” for crime, guns can share similar repeat characteristics. In fact, a single firearm should be considered “durable hardware” that may never go away.

The emphasis on “gun crime” research has led to a relative lack of understanding about “crime guns” themselves. In other words, the tools that are a part of gun crime, the guns, are rarely the subject of research. Today we are joined by Dr. Jonathan Reid, an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Texas A&M University. Dr. Reid discusses his recent publication titled, “The Gun’s Journey to Crime: Spatial and Temporal Patterns of Repeat Criminal Firearm Use” (co-authored by Yan Zhang, William King, Jennifer Clausen, and William Wells). Click play and learn more about crime guns, not just gun crime.

Don't forget to like, FOLLOW, and share. Sharing this podcast or an episode is one of the best complements I can receive, which will help grow the show.

And don't forget to provide a review. Giving five stars is never a bad idea.

Feel free to email me your comments using the "send us a text" option (above), or at the following email address: policeinservicetrainingpodcast@gmail.com

You can also contact me at: Bluesky: @policeinservice.bsky.social

Send us Fan Mail

Police officers understand evidence. From their time in the police academy to the first time they testify in court, even traffic court, an officer understands the importance of providing clear provable information. The evidence has to contribute to an argument that something is more than likely than not to be true. But when we to listen to news reports they are going to focus on the most serious issues. Unfortunately, the most serious issues are not the most common. In academics we call this "an N of 1." This does not stop people, the news media, or politicians from exploiting that single incident. But this is not evidence. The entire policing field understands the N of 1, because the field of policing can be targeted based on the behavior of a single officer. Whether the behavior is justified or corrupt, that single incident is thrown about as something common to policing. Again, this is not evidence. On today’s episode we’re going to be speaking with Calvin Proffit about the true nature of immigration and its relationship to crime. This is often discussed in the media, but we’re going to look at what the research evidences tells us about this issue. Calvin is a PhD candidate in the School of Criminal Justice at the University of Cincinnati. Calvin is the lead author of “Gun Violence in the Age of Mass Migration: An Empirical Assessment of Immigration Effects on U.S. County-Level Firearm Homicides, 2000–2015,” which was published just a month or so ago.

Main Topics

• This research is a macro examination of crime patters across locations and demographics.
• Thirty years of research shows immigration insulates a neighborhood from crime.
• “Immigrant Revitalization” can decrease gang and gun violence.
• The macro level data finds a negative relationship between gun homicides and immigrant populations.
• When it comes to “gang-related” violence, this seems to be a unique problem.

Don't forget to like, FOLLOW, and share. Sharing this podcast or an episode is one of the best complements I can receive, which will help grow the show.

And don't forget to provide a review. Giving five stars is never a bad idea.

Feel free to email me your comments using the "send us a text" option (above), or at the following email address: policeinservicetrainingpodcast@gmail.com

You can also contact me at: Bluesky: @policeinservice.bsky.social

Send us Fan Mail

We’ve all seen the movies in which a suspect is being interviewed by a bad cop and a good cop. The detectives badger or con the suspect to a point of offering a false confession just to stop the process. In the real world it is believed that false confessions make up 13% of wrongful convictions. In the realm of evidence-based policing a relatively new approach to conducting suspect interviews is something called science-based interrogations. The research into science-based interrogation is limited but growing. An important component of using a science-based approach to interrogations is the training provided to those police officers and detectives who will use this tool. Joining the podcast today is Dr. Melissa Russano who will be discussing two studies examining the impact of training on the use of science-based interrogation (SBI) methods. Melissa is a Professor of Criminal Justice at Roger Williams University. She holds a Ph.D. in Legal Psychology, and she teaches courses in Research Methods, legal psychology, and investigative interviewing. You can contact Dr. Russano at mrussano@rwu.edu if you would like to further discuss her research, which includes:

Russano, M. B., Meissner, C. A., Atkinson, D. J., Brandon, S. E., Wells, S., Kleinman, S. M., & Jones, M. S. (2024). Evaluating the effectiveness of a 5-day training on science-based methods of interrogation with US federal, state, and local law enforcement investigators. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 30(2), 105.

Russano, M. B., Meissner, C. A., Jones, M. S., Rothweiler, J. N., Taylor, P. J., Cory, C., & Brandon, S. E. (2025). Evaluating the effectiveness of a practitioner‐designed science‐based interviewing and interrogation course: A collaborative training and research effort. Legal and Criminological Psychology.

Main Topics

• These studies take lab-based research and apply them in the policing field.
• SBI has multiple components, and each can improve the effectiveness of gaining cooperation and information from suspect, witnesses, and victims.
• Applying the traditional the accusatorial model is actually counterproductive.

Don't forget to like, FOLLOW, and share. Sharing this podcast or an episode is one of the best complements I can receive, which will help grow the show.

And don't forget to provide a review. Giving five stars is never a bad idea.

Feel free to email me your comments using the "send us a text" option (above), or at the following email address: policeinservicetrainingpodcast@gmail.com

You can also contact me at: Bluesky: @policeinservice.bsky.social