Tucson, AZ
Ashley Covarrubias is a native Tucsonan who has proudly served with the Tucson Police Department since 2016. She holds a BS in Criminal Justice Administration and an MPA from the University of Arizona. In 2014, Officer Covarrubias began a doctoral program in Public Policy and Management where her research primarily focused on dark networks in terrorism and ethics in policing. Since she began at TPD, she has served in Operations Division West as a patrol officer. During her tenure, she founded a community engagement program, You Can, Too. (YCT), with the goal to replace fear with facts and provide community members in underserved areas opportunities to have non-enforcement contact with police officers. She piloted the program at the Fred G Acosta Job Corps Center, F.O. Holaway Elementary School, and E.C. Nash Elementary School, where she collected data both pre- and post-intervention. Preliminarily findings show significant increases in community trust in police and in willingness to report crime. The program is currently expanding citywide in Tucson and the Yankton (SD) Police Department has also begun the program in their jurisdiction. Officer Covarrubias also received a grant from the Arizona State University School of Social Work to conduct a comprehensive study of the effectiveness of YCT. YCT was also recently chosen as a primary intervention strategy for a local Department of Justice Community Based Crime Reduction grant.