#73 (Cynthia Lum)

[Music] Reducing crime features conversations with influential thinkers in the police service and leading crime and policing researchers. [Music] A former Baltimore City police officer and detective, Professor Cynthia Lum is a leading authority on evidence-based policing and policymaking having co-authored one of the seminal works in the area. We talk about evidence-based policing, implementing innovation, and how to overcome some of the barriers to progress. [Music] This is Reducing Crime, I'm your host and my name is Jerry Rackliffe. If you know anything about evidence-based policing, you will, at some point, have read Cynthia Lum and Chris Copa's seminal 2017 book, "Events-based policing, translating research into practice." You could also skip my 2023 book, "Events-based policing, the basics." Yeah, getting my shameless plug in early. But Lum and Copa's book really brought evidence-based policing to many people for the first time. Dr. Lum is a distinguished university professor of criminology, law, and society at George Mason University. She also directs their centre for evidence-based crime policy. She's an appointed member of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Law and Justice, an appointed trustee to the Council on Criminal Justice, and a board director for the National Policing Institute. And before all of that, she was for five years a Baltimore City police officer and detective. These days, she continues to contribute to the field by being the Editor-in-Chief of Criminology and Public Policy, that's the American Society of Criminology's flagship policy journal, you didn't know, and as the founding Editor-in-Chief of Translational Criminology magazine, which publishes easy-to-read policy-relevant crime prevention work, the magazine is available for free online. Cynthia finally broke down to my persistent pestering, and overcame some trepidation about podcasts, which I didn't take too personally, to squeeze in an hour with me a few days before the centre for evidence-based crime policy symposium, which she was organising back in June. As you join us, we are discussing where the sitting outside the Starbucks and the DC Sub-Burbs was even a good location choice to record the episode. Jerry, I don't know, is this a good spot? It's the spot we've got. That's right. Inside is Tuecoe. Outside was great. I came up here and it was super quiet and now every truck. That's right. And the whole of the DC Sub-Burbs. The whole building up there is moving. Yeah. And on top of this, you're trying to organise the conference. I know. I'm excited about it. You're one day symposium. Every two years now, we do the conference because it just got too big. We out-crew our pants in many ways. You're a victim of your own success. Well, I don't know about that, but the CBCP symposium is big. It's like one day, and it goes off without a hitch. People might think, oh, this is like simple, right? We spend a year preparing for it. Well, I've already been on two, I think, planning calls with you. Yeah. You're almost like the FBI at this point. At this point, we're having pre-meeting meetings. I wish they'd just drive me nuts with those guys. I mean, they're great. I love the Bureau, but they're just like, we have a meeting about the meeting that's coming up next week. That's exactly right. Because we want to be prepared, right? And it's curated. And we want folks to come and see evidence-based crime policy. And it's best light. So what the hell have you got me there, then? Because, Jerry, you're like one of the most important people. Evidence-based policy. Oh, no. No, I'm sorry. No, shut up. All praise will be redacted and removed from this. No, no, no, no, no. This episode does about you. Yes, but let me say this. I'm going to edit this out. I understand, but I want to say this to you. You're really important to me. I mean, people that are. Excaps. I mean, yeah, but you're. Really rare, please. That's right, but you're a senior person in this area. There's not a lot of people. That's co-for-old, isn't it? Thanks. Thanks for that. You just had a big birthday, too. And now you're just rubbing my nose in. I know. I know. It is a big birthday. But I'm serious. It's important to have people that know policing, and that care about its reform, and that also think about the intellectual side of it. And it's interesting, especially when we see where criminology and criminal justice is going right now. I wouldn't consider it right now to be an encouraging place for people who are in policing to think about doctoral education, or even postgraduate education, in many places. I mean, you start to think about where would be an encouraging place to go and be a scholar of policing from a policing background in the US, and there'd be like four or five places I'd mention, and that would be it. But if we want reform, we have to push forward with this. We have an international summer school for policing scholars. That's in July in Australia, actually. And we do it because we're trying to encourage and foster policing scholars. If you're going to have reform, how are you going to do that? Without younger folks taking on the charge to study it, to think through it, everything about is hard. Well, I think because especially as you have a policing background as well, you don't make it well-known. Probably because I was a mediocre cop. Real mediocre, I'm sure. I mean, jeez. I am sure that wasn't because. Nobody was giving me like medals for being the best cop in the world, you know? But back then nobody did that kind of stuff anyway, but. I did get a commissioner's medal once. There you go. It's more than I ever got, but what do they say? Only the mediocre are at their best every day. No, but I think it's important to show people in the practitioner field in evidence-based medicine, for example. You wouldn't think twice about the fact that medical practitioners are also doing evidence-based medicine. But if academia keeps pushing policing scholars out and pushing them away, I worry what's going to happen is that the reform agenda is going to be left to people who are completely divorced from and outside of policing and don't understand it. And I think we're a little harder to write off because we know policing a little bit better. Yeah, and we also know the science too, which is important. I mean, I used to wonder about how my policing experience had anything to do with my academic life. I couldn't figure that out very well. And you know how it is in academia. You come from a policing background. People think like you're not as great of an academic. In my case, they're right, but that's not the story. In the policing world, you come in with academic background. They're like, "Oh God, another one of these folks." So you're screwed either way, right? And it took me a while to kind of think through how my policing experience really mattered. But where it matters is in the details. I think as cops, we kind of know, "Uh, hi, Doug." "Kuja, come down." It sounds like some of the police dogs I know. Right. Policing scholars know about the details. And you can't pull the wool over our eyes about these details. And these details have to do with just every day little things that cops are doing on the street. I remember them clearly to this day. You know, and this was 20-some years ago that I was a cop. Even though we like to find things that don't work that well, you actually care about improving policing and making it better. I know so many policing scholars that are really good, that get into that nitty-gritty detail, that really study the details about things Chris, of course. Yeah, you're part of the Chris Copa. Who's the thought that he would have a curve named after him? See, you know what? I meant to get through this whole podcast without talking about the Copa curve. All right. I'll go in. We made it like three minutes. Let me tell you, I'll go into a police department. I'll spend like a whole day with them working on evidence-based policing, talking about all these details, et cetera, et cetera. Eyes glazed over, you know, some of the cops are like, "Who is this girl?" Right? I'll mention Copa curve. They're like, "Oh, is he coming today?" I'm like, "You know what, people?" I just spent five hours with you, okay? That's fantastic. Oh my gosh, you know, when you're thinking about policing reform, you can't do it without knowing the nitty-gritty. And let me also say, none of this is sexy. Okay, so you won't ever find me coming up with some huge finding that goes viral that millions of people are talking about. Why? Because I'm very much concerned with just every day things that the police are focused on. But that's so important. Because it's, I like doing a lot of fieldwork where I can. Because that's where I get ideas from. Yeah. Because it's what frontline cops are doing. Where you learn. Yeah, it's where you learn. It's where you learn. Oh, that's sharing going to work. Yeah. It's where you also go, "Oh, that's a good idea. Do you see what they were doing there?" Or do you see where that problem was? We could fix that. Incremental change isn't sexy. But I'm a big fan of incremental change. Because these big sweeping changes that people want to make is like, "Yeah, do you want to tell me what the consequences are likely to be before we go Russian often do that big fan of incremental change?" I am too. I get a lot of joy when cops that I'm working with. All of a sudden you can see the light bulb going off in their mind or they take a risk and they try something that's out of their routine. And I see their intellectual side. I always tell people, like policing to me is an intellectual profession. I don't mean that in academic sense. I mean that it involves like thinking. You have to think through things. You have to engineer things. So you just had a big birthday, so congratulations. Thank you very much. You look great for 21. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. I'm going to early retire at 25. Fantastic. That's what we all want to do, isn't it? You don't make a big thing about your policing career. I don't know, I think you should a little bit. Because it's not like you did two weeks in the job. You spent five years in the job. And you weren't in a Mickey Mouse department either. I mean, Baltimore, back in the day. Baltimore City. Baltimore City Police Department, back in the day, was a hell of a place. How did you end up there? People ask me this question all the time. My answer is so sad. I tend to make decisions in my life based on just whims. We won't tell Chris this. Yeah. That's a good one. I make decisions based on kind of whims and passions and things that I'm interested in at the moment. And I think I get this from my parents, you know, as immigrants, they were very adventurous people. My dad has a fantastic story of how he survived World War II and then made it here and ultimately helped build the Apollo series and the space shuttle. I was, of course, his favorite child. Don't put that on the podcast. But, you know, I never knew anything about criminology when I was in college. What did you study in college? Political science and economics. I went to UCLA and it was just happened chance that I ended up at the London School of Economics. So I go knock on Paul Rockstone. And he says, "I, you know, I say I am Cynthia." And so I asked him if I could join his master's program in criminology and the sociology of DBS. And he said, "Well, do you know anything about criminology?" And I'm like, "No." Why do you sell yourself? I know, I know. Jerry, nobody ever accused me of being the sharpest tool. Okay. I know. This is horrible. Cynthia alum's interview tips for how to join a master's program 101. Yes. Yeah. Don't do this kids. Don't do this at home. So Paul Rock said, "Sure. Come on in." He was so kind and so generous. Oh, he is. Had lunch for the many years ago. It was one of the most delightful lunches I've had. He was like the first person I ever met who was a sociologist. And I just learned so much about it. And I said, "Oh, I'm going to take on this." And so that's how I decided to apply for criminology department. And one of them happened to be Maryland. And one day I was in my flat in London and got a call from Larry Sherman. Oh, that'll trouble Nicar. And I'm sorry, Larry, if you're listening to this. I didn't know who Larry was because I wasn't involved in policing research. And it became fateful because Larry became one of the most important people in my career. In many people's career. Oh, yeah. And he called me up. He talked to me a little bit and Larry's very convincing. And so that's how I chose to come to Maryland. You didn't have a connection to the. I lived in Los Angeles my whole life. I had no idea about Maryland. No, you didn't have a connection to anywhere on these coasts. I didn't know anything about the university, frankly. A year into University of Maryland, I realized that that was not for me. Oh, wow, really? Everybody was so bright and smart. And I was like, I don't think this is for me. Do you think how do we touch of imposter syndrome kicking around there? Oh, yeah, you know, I mean. It's very common. Yeah, it is very common. And I thought, well, I think instead I'm going to join a police department. The reason why I joined Baltimore City was it simply was the largest city nearby where I lived. Fantastic decision-making. Didn't do any research on Baltimore City PD and just. I didn't know anything about it. I didn't know anything about the city. It just seemed like a big city. I was like, let's go there. So because I come from big city. When was this? Because this must have been pre-the-wire then. I started reading homicide life on the street. And I met some of those folks while I was in the academy. The guy that got shot was an academy instructor. And he was blind by that time from the injury. And he taught in that academy. And I got to meet him. And yeah, that's how I ended up in Baltimore City. You ended up as the detective in the western district, didn't you? No, started off in the eastern district in patrol. Like they film a lot of the wire in the eastern and the western. So those two districts are kind of your highest crime districts. I stayed in patrol for a few years. And then became a detective in special victims. Back then it was called child abuse unit. And we handled all physical and sexual child abuse. But I ended up going back to the University of Maryland to try to finish my degree. It took me seven years to finish the PhD because I was working. Sure, I've had a few students who are serving police officers. And you know, they're juggling kids and work and shift work and callouts and doing a PhD. I mean, it's an incredible lift. They're very, very impressive. It's a big lift. And at the end of my time at the University of Maryland, I applied for a assistant professor position. Northeastern was the first to offer me a job. They offered me a job right then and there and I took it. And that was how I got into academia. You know, I could have gone back to policing. But by that time I hit the five-year hump for policing and it made me angry. It's hard to explain this to people who are at cops. But sometimes policing, it makes you cynical, makes you angry. It turns you into a different type of a person. And I realized I need to move on. Oh, that's good of you. I mean, I did 11 years and I decided to just adopt that as my whole personality. That's why I haven't changed since then. Yeah, I mean, it makes you rough in many ways. And also, I knew that I couldn't advance. I think it can be a mindset. Depends on where you are and what you do. I mean, you are working in a particularly challenging area. It also depends on who your mentors are and your support system and things like that. So you've got good people around you. That's right. The job's fantastic. If you've got bad people or a really rough job, it can be hugely stressful. Good and episode coming up soon on the podcast, probably in the next episode, with Grant Edwards from Australia, who also worked in child abuse investigations. And it had a hugely deleterious effect on his mental health. So you were working in this area, pursuing your PhD. If I remember correctly, you told me that your dissertation was on drug markets and crime. And that's hugely valuable for policing. Was it informed by your patrol work in Baltimore? No. In some ways, yes. In that there are some places in East Baltimore that have a lot of very active drug markets that are not violent at all. Right. And other places that are very violent drug markets. Were the first ones hamstered them? Well, no. But I think what really informed me about that dissertation was probably my interactions with David Weisberg. And I was very influenced by his thinking about place-based research. And got me thinking about why are there places in Baltimore that are not violent but are very heavy drug markets? And why are there places that are very violent? Drugs obviously have a negative effect on people in neighborhoods, but they're not all as bad as each other. No. It's the weirdest thing to say, there are drug markets that are bad and drug markets that are bad but not as bad. And that doesn't make sense to the public, but when you're actually staring at the data and data doesn't care what you think it just tells you what it is. It's really clear to see. Well, in a lot of violence that takes place in areas that have drug markets are not related to those drug markets, you know. And so it's a much more complicated situation than just saying, hey, these open-air drug markets are causing violence. Are we verging on the edge of talking about broken windows at that point? Yeah, hi. Okay, let's stop. You feel this looming trap door, this looming trap door open in front of you. Oh, yeah, let's get back to evidence-based policing because I think that's a challenging subject, Jerry. Yeah. You know, sometimes with broken windows is that in many ways we have like the most simplified view of it and then the most simplified knee-jerk reaction to it, right? Yes. But anybody who studies place or environmental criminology knows how complex the intersection is between routines, crime, disorder, people's perceptions, the police, social, informal and formal social controls. Orably complicated. It is. And so when you think through that in order to deal with that particular problem, it needs a complex approach. It needs like an approach that's not full and that's critical. It's not deterministic. If you have all these things, you will end up with this. That's exactly correct. But here's the trap. When police are confronted with the very complex problems without enough information, evidence, tools, mentorship, supervision, systems to deal with that, then they're going to apply what they know. And what they know from traditional approaches to policing is not enough to deal with those problems. That's why evidence-based approaches are so important. The problem with simple approaches is that they're easy. They don't require much of an education and they sound very determined and decisive. So they appeal to police leaders exactly for all of those reasons. What you're really pitching from an evidence-based approach is more doubt, more thought. You know, you've got a lot of experience with police departments. How do you pitch that much more harder approach, which is more evidence-driven and more data-driven and more logical and reasonable? When the competition is just some captain going, "We've done this in the past and I know this and I'm absolutely sure this will work. Let's do this." Or they take things from evidence-based approaches and they simplify it down to something and say, "Let's do this. Evidence-based." Right? It's hard. Jerry, I mean, I feel like I'm preaching to the choir because the selling of this is one of the most difficult things that we can accomplish. Because you're asking the police to basically undo all their systems that they're used to. You're asking them to move into a very risky area. And also there's no solution about the thinking part either. Like you, you can say, "Let's hire more educated cops. I don't believe that's going to help you." Thinking does not only require education, right? It requires all sorts of incentives, infrastructure, training, mentorship, supervision to get you to that level of thinking. And the mindset. And it doesn't matter that we already know that the police organization is stronger than any innovation that tries to be brought into that organization. We know about this about technology. We know this about innovations. We know this about human resources, just as we know this about physical resources. So when you say it, we're talking about evidence-based policing. And of course you and that champion did the curve business. You guys wrote a Bible on this subject. It's sort of in a nutshell what to you is evidence-based policing. It's two things, really, and the intersection between these two things. First, on the one hand, you have the evidence itself, right? And science, to me, is incredibly important in democracies. It's an important source of objective information that's systematically developed. And it can be developed in many different ways, right? There's a lot of different methods that we use as scientists to answer questions. On the other hand, evidence-based policing is about how do we get that science to then be institutionalized into practice. And this is, to me, the other leg of evidence-based policing, the most, maybe more important than the science, perhaps, right? It's like how do we think through undoing the systems of police that have relied so much on discretion or like vague notions of the law or tradition? How do we undo all that to then take something we know from systematic study and then turn it into an actual deployment. To me, evidence-based policing is about trying to figure out not only that supply of research, but also trying to figure out how to institutionalize it into practice. Now, seeing how I bought you a coffee, I feel like it gives me some latitude, obviously. It's coffee wasn't worth the price, right? It's delicious. So let me throw something at you because people who are not fans of evidence-based policing so much attack evidence-based policing in a whole range of ways. Everything from, it's just about randomised control trials. Right. Or, you know, I think frontline cops think, "Are you taking away my discretion by telling me what to do?" Because their argument is, "I've got this experience. My experience tells me something else. How do we overcome that?" This is a challenging question. That's why I bought you a coffee. Yeah. Well, in terms of how to change police and their beliefs about lipid experience, I'm a big fan of attacking from all sides. Okay. This is a huge challenge. This is something that's not easy. So you have to come at it from every single possible angle. Let me explain what I mean by this. At things like the national level or at the funding levels or even at the center for evidence-based crime policy levels, right? You come at it by building synergies between people, by raising awareness about what it is, the societies of evidence-based policing. They build communities of interest in thinking around this because they're trying to change the way people define the profession. And this is where Larry's work has been so important. And that some of his earliest writings on this is about how do we figure out what levers can incentivize agencies to think through adjusting police officer behavior, right? And not even rubber levers. You know, you don't want them pulled briefly and then soon as you let go, they spring back to their original position. So on the one hand, you need these very big organizations and funding mechanisms and incentives. And sometimes they're negative incentives too, you know, to try to adjust the way the police view their profession. On the other hand, and this is, you know, something that brings me a lot of joy, as I mentioned before. On the other hand, you need folks that are in the field that are working with police, but you need to start working with cops to start understanding what the evidence is and start thinking through how to address problems differently. We can come to them with all the ideas, but they have to make it work in their environment. So it's also partly about taking their experiences and saying, "Hey, can we try something different?" Or, "Hey, can you think through how your experience could be helpful?" Right. In like facilitating this evidence, we need cops to also be cops. Yeah, I have a model that I use for crime reduction called Panda. Each stage comes with checklists. And people have occasionally said to me, "They seem really worried." And they kind of say, "You know, I kind of want to add something here or slightly change that." And they think I'm going to be horribly offended. It's like, "No, you have to adjust this to your environment." I'm happy that you're even looking at it. Adjust it a little and make this work. If I've got you 90% of the way there, or 80% of the way there. If you can make it work by adding your 10 or 20% do it. Go for it. Absolutely. Yeah, this is a work in progress, Jared. We will never have evidence-based policing achieve its full potential by the time you and I. We'll be long dead by that. Oh, bloody hell. They need to press me. But. What do you know about my health? Hence the reason why. Hence the reason why we need younger folks to take on this charge, right? It's like any one of us just trying to change our regular daily habits. If somebody came up to you and said, "Hey, change the way you teach your classes." We'd be like, "Oh, you know, and huff and puff about it." Or like use this new technology to change the way you're teaching classes, right? It's hard. And I think for all of those levels and everything in between, smaller incremental steps seem far less threatening. They do, but I think the trick is how to then change some of those things to have bigger impacts, right? For example, like with your panda and with your checklist, right? And also with who you are. It's like how do we get more people to think through thinking about what's on those checklists, right? It's not like they're taking the checklists out on the street and then checklists, you know? Check, check, check, check, check, check, while they're in a conflict and like, you know, trying to keep somebody from shooting someone. It's like three rounds of smacking into the wall. Hold on a minute, I'm in the middle of my checklists. That's right. And that's often a critique that I think some academics like to fall back on. It's a straw man argument. It's like sometimes I don't even want to bother with that. But what matters is they think, "Okay, wait a second. There's a lot more to think about here." And if that checklist can help them think a little bit more about that topic, then you've made strides. Thinking through the other way, the much more esoteric academic arguments, I remember reading some work by David Foundon when he was talking about systematic reviews. And I'm paraphrasing. He writes that some people are offended because the methodological quality of their work, they feel they're being criticized because it's not included in systematic reviews. And he says, "Basically, and they're right to be." You know, we are only including work of a suitably high methodological quality. And that's a criticism of evidence-based policing, especially among people who still seem fixated on this idea. It's just randomized control trials or nothing. Yeah, I don't think anybody who I know that does randomized control trials has ever made the argument that randomized control trials or nothing. You know, like that that's the only way to generate evidence. For example, I, Chris and I have developed something called the evidence-based policing matrix. In that matrix, you don't have just randomized controlled experiments. You have quasi-experiments, you have some econometric analyses, you have some studies that some methodologists might think are challenged in terms of their internal validity. However, I take the view that if we only looked at certain types of studies, then you're going to have a very limited pool in which to inspire police to think through changes on how they're doing their deployment. Sometimes we don't have all the answers, a good example is in investigations. We don't have a lot of randomized controlled studies on investigations. It's one of the most unresearched areas of policing, and yet it's hugely important. And so some of the work that I do in investigations is really just trying to bring together a large amount of research. Some of it is not even quasi-experimental, but it's trying to give people a sense of what I think, given the literature and given the research in this area, matters in investigation. And that is effort, an organization that's built around that effort, right? These academic arguments about methodology, they're important in some regard, I don't dismiss them because method is very important. We want to find the answers to questions and use the best available methodologies that we can, whether they're qualitative or quantitative. But oh my gosh, Jerry, research in policing is messy. Have you ever been involved in a study that didn't go south in some way? There's a wonderful quote by a general called Von Mulkey from the late 1800s. He said, "No plants are vibes contact with the enemy." There's no enemy in these studies, but it's just life. I think the better quote is Mike Tyson. Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. Well, just starting a study is like being punched in the mouth repeatedly. And then you find all the things that can go wrong with it. But I think what's important is that we persevere. Because even if you start with the idea of having, and I don't mean a gold standard, but a gold level study, if in the end it ends up being silver or bronze, that's still okay. It can make a contribution just as long as it's not rusty pewter. That's exactly right, and sometimes you learn just by knowing what failed. Failures are important sometimes, and it helps us understand policing better. If you don't pursue fieldwork because you're afraid of that failure, then don't pursue it because every study that I've ever done has always had challenges. Absolutely. I mean, you've done some fantastic studies over the years. And a whole range of areas, you're very eclectic in what you've taken on, which I think has been fascinating and great to see. But they only see the final product. The peer-review journal article, the Campbell Collaboration kind of review, systematic reviews, and they see these studies and they think, "Oh, I could never do that." But they don't see that in amongst all of that, there are whole sections that have a monumental cluster of biblical proportions. And all you're just doing is trying to carve out some sense of meaning and purpose from this in the end. That is exactly correct. You know, as academics, let me put on my academic hat. I think we're sensitive, and our egos are fragile. And everybody's looking for that big score, that big finding that's somehow going to make them famous. There's like, "I don't know, frankly, I don't know. This is not me." And so when a study is left out of a systematic review, or when we feel like somebody's ignoring our work, when they may not be, they just may not know it. You know, I think sometimes academics can be challenged by those things. I feel like, for me, I just have to do things that bring me some purpose to what I'm working on. I don't focus so much on critiques about evidence-based policing because there are a lot. I don't focus so much on cops that are like, "I don't want to do this because this is ridiculous." You know, and all you got all your checklists, and what's this? Are there any critiques of evidence-based policing you've heard that you thought were reasonable in some way? You know, I think a lot of critiques about both policing and evidence-based policing are reasonable. And that's why we keep working in it, you know. Sometimes we don't have enough research, but we're trying to say something about something. And I think that's a fair critique. We overstretch sometimes. Because I think we're interested, and we want to help. Look, I'm just one person. I can only focus on some things. You know, one of the critiques we always get is, "Why do you only focus on crime reduction?" Which is not true, but, you know, why do you only focus on prevention? It's because I'm just one person. I can't do it all. I'm so sorry that my research agenda doesn't aspire with what you would like me to do. I mean, who says that in the rest of the world? Yeah, I can only really focus on what I can contribute. You know, sometimes I want to just be in a camp until something else, just to save the house where it's like other people. You and I could go back to being cops. We just can't fit into our uniforms anymore, probably. Oh, you could, you're in great shape. But this notion that people get upset because we're not researching what they would like us to research. In what other field do people behave like that? Yeah, it's unfortunate, but I feel like you do need those people who are running those big experiments. You also need people who are just working with cops on a day-to-day basis. Absolutely. And you need the societies of evidence-based policing. Some of those individuals, they might not be able to do some kind of fancy analysis or something like that. But they're incredibly important to evidence-based policing, because they're the ones that are translating, that are building receptivity, that are thinking about re-engineering systems. Well, there are people who are pioneers in small or medium-sized departments. That's right. They're doing huge work in turn. Look at the evidence-based policing hall of favors. Every single one of them has a different take on their contribution. And often they're pushing against a lot of resistance internally within their department. Yeah, they should get a medal just for that. Putting that career progression at risk. That's right. Simply by pushing for something that they know is going to make a contribution to the field. That's right. And I look up to that because eventually, Jerry, they're going to have a supervisor that doesn't understand what they're trying to accomplish. What is the role then of the center for evidence-based crime policy that you've set up at George Mason University? The center for evidence-based crime policy, in my view, has a couple of purposes. And it really gets back to what I view evidence-based policing to be about. One, it's about generating good science. You know, ever since 2008, we now have like, I think our grant portfolio is over 50 million now. That's incredible. And the other part of our center is really focused on, how do we then encourage translation, receptivity, institutionalization, implementation? At a level that's at the national level. What works in that translation piece? Synergies are important. Bringing together people and developing a community of interest and intellect around a particular topic to move the needle. And the center is incredibly unusual in this regard. We invest our own money into other people that are not part of George Mason University. Like bringing together folks for symposium or congressional briefing or summer school or workshops. And we've been doing this since 2008. The second thing is developing tools. So for example, you know, Chris and I have developed a lot of tools like the Matrix, the Playbook, Case of Place. You know, tools related to training and communities, webinars, videos, different things like that. Resources that are trying to help push that needle. This isn't just an academic venture, is it? No. Because universities are terrible at rewarding all the things that you've just been talking about. Unless it's grants and peer-reviewed journal articles, they're pretty much not interested. That's right. There is not a reward for this in the academic world. But the reward is greater than that. The reward gets at the core of what we're trying to accomplish really. I feel like I'm standing an inch taller. Well, you should, Jerry. Because as scientists, our job is not just to generate peer-reviewed publications for ourselves. We don't even read each other's work sometimes, right? I read yours. Well, thank you. But Jerry, it's like, what's the purpose of our work, right? The purpose of our work is to think through improving whatever we're working on. That's what drives me. It is a little unorthodox in the academic world. And this is why I work eight days a week. I think the center is unique in that it really tries, and that I really try as the director of the center, to think through the balance between generating that science and then building communities around that science. And in all this translational work, I'm thinking about that. If there was one thing that you would want police leaders or police organizations to do differently, that would really help advance evidence-based policing, what would that be? I always get this one thing question, or give me five things of there, right? I haven't got time for five. Well, you won't have time for my one, either, because there is no one thing. If I had to say one thing, it's more like a suite of things, right? And that is, I think, police leaders have to strategize about how to achieve the different mandates that they're trying to achieve. Crime control, or prevention, or police legitimacy, or what have you, improve relationships with the community. The reason why I say strategize is because they have to look at all of the systems that relate to that outcome that they're trying to imagine. They have to figure out, well, OK, how do we manipulate these systems? And that is no easy task. The Hall of Famers understand this, and this is where they dig their grave a little bit, right? Because they know that the solution is in re-engineering the systems. If they re-engineer the systems, that is poking the sleeping giant. Yeah. That's a great way of looking at it. It's to be much more strategic in their thought. I think a piece of it is just be open to the possibility that they don't have all the answers, and evidence-based policing might help them get there. And it doesn't even mean that we've got the answers to give them, but the processes of evidence-based policing will help them get there, because they'll end up using their data and their personnel in more interesting ways. Well, we've already taken up far too much of your time, but as a kind of last piece, where does all this need to go next? The most important thing, I think, to me is that people involved in this, you, me, cops, practitioners, people at ASCBP, people have been kicked down or whatever. Everybody that's involved in this continues. They persevere. Right now is a hard time for both policing scholars and for policing practitioners. But ultimately, crime persists. It does. And we have to figure out the best ways to deal with that crime in ways that are democratic, that are lawful, that are legitimate, but that are also evidence-based. And that doesn't mean throwing in the towel of either police practice or police research. Well, this has been super fun. Thank you for coming. I'm glad it's over. Thank you for coming out to a coffee shop in the middle of the DC suburbs and coming and chatting to me. It's been great fun. Oh, sure. I'm happy to do it. That was episode 73 of Reducing Crime, recorded somewhere in the Northern Virginia area in June 2024. Did you know that you can subscribe to Reducing Crime as Spotify, SoundCloud, Apple or just about anywhere? If you subscribe, episodes arrive on your device automatically and an angel gets its wings or something. Transcripts and multiple choice questions for every episode are available for instructors. Just DM me at underscore reducing crime on Twitter for details. Be safe and best of luck.