Highlights from the Community Safety Leadership Academies + new paper on predicting police misconduct
Summer should be a season filled with joy, spent outdoors with friends and family. Yet, for too many, it is a time overshadowed by the sorrow of gun violence. At the Crime Lab, our goal is to be part of the solution to this persistent challenge, and we work tirelessly to reduce gun violence and bring safety to our communities.
One way we are addressing gun violence is through our Community Safety Leadership Academies.
Community Violence Intervention Leadership Academy (CVILA) Welcomes Second Cohort
Last week, the Crime Lab was thrilled to welcome 31 students from 20 localities across the country to our Community Violence Intervention Leadership Academy’s second cohort.
The CVILA is a first-of-its-kind educational program designed to deepen the leadership and management practices of senior CVI leaders so they can effectively manage community-based organizations and implement CVI strategies at scale. Over the next five months, the cohort will experience a rigorous hands-on education in community violence intervention leadership and management. They will learn both in the classroom and in immersive learning labs across the country.
Other speakers at the welcome event included Garien Gatewood, Deputy Mayor of Community Safety, City of Chicago; Oresa Napper-Williams, Executive Director, Not Another Child; and Jens Ludwig, Faculty Director, University of Chicago Crime Lab.
Policing Leadership Academy (PLA) Graduation
The Crime Lab hosted the graduation of our second cohort of the PLA: the only police management and leadership education program in the country specifically designed to increase safety and fairness in America’s most violent neighborhoods.
The PLA’s second cohort consisted of 35 police leaders from departments across the United States, as well as officers from London, Toronto, and the Irish Garda. Collectively, the first and second cohorts of leaders serve 41 jurisdictions comprising over 28% of homicides in America. These leaders can have an outsized impact on improving public safety, and it’s our hope that the PLA provides them with additional tools to do so.
The graduation ceremony also featured remarks by Dick Durbin, United States Senator from Illinois; Ethan Bueno de Mesquita, Dean, Harris School of Public Policy; Craig Turk, Producer and Writer; and Armando Aguilar, Assistant Chief, Miami Police Department.
New NBER Working Paper: Predicting Police Misconduct
The Crime Lab recently published results from a study of an officer support system showing that the top 2% of officers with the highest predicted risk are 6 times more likely to engage in serious misconduct than the average officer. While this level of predictability is far from perfect, it provides an enormously helpful decision aid for targeting supportive resources.
Read more about the study and related news coverage