Celebrating 10 Years of NIJ’s Law Enforcement Advancing Data and Science (LEADS) Scholars Program - 2024 NIJ Research Conference

DIRECTOR LA VIGNE:All right you're having way too much fun at this conference. I cannot get you inside the plenary room. It is like come on! Get your seats. So much going on. So much energy here. I am really excited to be introducing the next plenary. This plenary is in honor of the tenth anniversary of our LEADS scholars program. LEADS is a said this morning stands for Law Enforcement Advancing Data and Science.

And about 10 years ago, the division for this — the vision for this program was to help travel sworn officers who were interested in going to researching conferences to get to those conferences. Since then it has grown by leaps and bounds. It is not just a travel scholarship. There is trainings, there is networking opportunities. There's research partnerships where we help these scholars team up with other researchers or give them the tools or the literature searches or the data assistance to help them explore their own research questions. It has expanded beyond sworn officers to include civilians and even academic partners.LEADS has done so much.

I don't want to steal the thunder of this plenary panel, but I will say it has had such a huge impact on the field of policing and you will be hearing about that in detail. But what I like most about LEADS is that it really helps us get from evidence to action, that challenge that I described this morning. How do we get research into the hands of people who will make a difference? What at that research is generated by people who are already in the agency's? That is what LEADS is all about.

I will welcome the panelist to come onstage. Before I do I want to acknowledge — they will introduce themselves, but we have the honor of Maureen McGough, or "Mo" as she is no. She was NIJ as an advisor and helpful in helping us launch this initiative and is beloved by so many of the lead scholars for the enthusiasm. I want to thank her. I want to thank the original partners that help LEADS become a reality.

And that is RAND, and the International Association of Chiefs of Police we also want to thank the current partner who is running this program and that is the National Policing Institute. And finally, but certainly not last, I want to thank Steve Schultz who has been shepherding this program for so long. So thanks to everyone who is had a hand in LEADS. Poli-sci of an applause for that.

[ Applause ]

And then while I am exiting the stage and I in welcoming the panelist to get on the stage, we are going to watch a video montage that highlights the program for you.

[ Video playing ]

[ Music playing ]

LEADS is the National Institute of Justice program this dance for Law Enforcement Advancing Data and Science, and it is really a program that will improve policies and practices based on evidence.

I started the LEADS program in 2016. I was a master student at Rutgers University, and I was looking for a way that I could integrate the research that I was reading in my classes into the policies that I was implementing in the police department.

The NIJ LEADS Scholars program has helped me tremendously out of all as a police manager, critical thinker, and I have evolved as a leader.

Medicine Chief Barnes is one of the inductees for the evidence-based University Hall of Fame.

Tomorrow we are beginning our inaugural meeting of the American Society of evidence-based policing.

We want to leave a legacy for our children so that they know that their fathers had did something about this problem.

The guidance profession that was built by men and is sort of has changed and it was not intentional by the status quo doesn't support the needs of women.

Anyone thinking about coming into the program, we want them to know that it is truly a great experience. You hear the general public clamor for changes of the law enforcement profession. This is one of those places where that change happens.

[ Applause ]

That was really great. Nancy, Steve, thank you for the distinct honor to lead this panel today. And is Nancy mention, I am Maureen McGough and currently the Executive Director for the public safety program at the University of South Carolina school of Law. But I spent much of my career as a Senior Policy Advisor at NIJ, and I was part of the team that had the pleasure and honorability this program back in 2014. And it means so much to be back together with these folks today to really celebrate their progress and acknowledge the change that these folks have really catapulted in the police profession. So first I want to really briefly introduce my fellow panelist here.

We have Chief Shon Barnes of the medicine the police department. He is a lead scholar from 2015, and we have retired chief Ivonne Roman and cofounder of the 30-by-30 initiative, and she is a 2016 LEADS scholar.We have Assistant Commissioner Jeremiah Johnson of the New York City Department of Corrections and also a 20162024 National Research Conference scholar. And we have Christian Peterson Ubers data research of the Portland police Bureau, and he is a 2019 LEADS civilian and part of the inaugural cohort and last, but most certainly not least we have Dr. Just Nix of the University of Omaha, Nebraska, and he is the inaugural cohort member and one of the first leads academic and also appointed in 2019.

So Nancy mentioned that this program really started on a shoestring. I think we found like $30,000 in the NIJ couch cushions. And we use that to travel to folks to IACP in Washington, DC. And we thought too small we started to understand the terms formative impact of the people. The program has since grown and there are over 125 participants in the LEADS program from across the country, and it is now a multimillion-dollar flagship of the National Institute of just us. I know is probably a little bit dark out there, but we have quite a few LEADS participants in the audience if you would not mind standing to be recognized.

[ Applause ]

Thank you for being here and thank you for everything you've done due tribute to this program as well.So when we were preparing for this panel, we thought it might be nice to just take a minute and reflect on the origins of this program and surprising no one, that very first voice you hold from in the video, Dr. Jeff Albert was very into middle and getting us to where we are today, and the other was a huge inspiration for this work was Dr. Renee Mitchell. If you are involved in evidence-based policing at all I know they are names you know well.

But back in 2012 I was at the IACP conference in San Diego, and it was my first IACP conference. And back then they have the Sprint Research Awards in policing where they would under a police practitioner partnership who made significant contributions to research in the field. Surprising no one, Dr. Jeff Albert won gold and when he went to accept his award, was followed by legions of people, right?Like a half-dozen co-PLS and other research assistants who actually did his work for him. It is Jeff, let's be honest, right? We had a bunch of police practitioner partners. There was a small Army accepting the gold award at the Sprint Research Awards that I saw at the IACP award. And then there was the silver award.

And Sergeant Renee Mitchell at the Sacrament of Police Department stood up and accepted that award and somehow Renee, as a patrol sergeant was able to pull off a randomized controlled trial to study the effectiveness of hotspot policing in Sacramento.

And it was a very powerful moment for those of us from NIJ in the audience they. It also powerful was Renee going up to Jeff after the award ceremony and saying, "you stole my award, expletive."

There was a lot of passion in the field as well. That really got us thinking about how we could better support people like Renee who were trying to affect the change we so deeply believe in at the NIJ. But my interest in advancing fielded research was in 1991. I was eight at the time. I realize I probably should have said that because half of this room will think I am too Junior and half of the room with think I am a lame old millennial with bad genes. But here we are. The cat is out of the bag. But I was eight. And my dad was a law enforcement officer in St. Petersburg Florida. He spent 30 years there.

In 1991, he actually got a grant from NIJ. It was for the pencil project, and it was paperless information systems totally online.And he used the NIJ money and bought computers for much of the cruisers, and he taught himself how to code and he developed software so that law enforcement officers could enter their incident report electronically. He also parted with a local researcher to evaluate and try to understand what impact that electronic filing had on how an officer use their time.

And you can guess with the results were. You actually are going to have to actually guess, but he did all the fun stuff and did not write the report, so I have no idea. But it really sort of made me realize in this moment that this type of sort of field driven commitment to research-inform practice, it has been there for decades.

But what NIJ is done through the LEADS scholars program has improved that work to a place of prominence in the national discourse and it is only getting bigger and only getting better and is a huge testament to the quality of the people that are in the program.

I think the other think that is really important to acknowledge at this point is that you know the LEADS scholars program was not conceptualized in a vacuum. If you think back to that 2013-2014 era in American policing, there really, was a lot of traction for EVP. Director John Law, I don't know if he's here in this conference.I know we come sometimes. But he just finished his 10 years as the NIJ Director, and he was so committed to the concept of translational research, making sure practice was inform research.

And other time Cynthia was expanding the center for evidence-based crime policy. She had launched translational policies, which is a fabulous publication, which I recommend you read. And of course Larry Sherman really expanded the UK culture policing across the pond.

So all of this really kind to estimate really kind of came together for this fertile ground type of work because all of these efforts, what they need is the ability to close the distance between research and practice.

You need to be able to find the people who are fluent in both, right? Who can navigate a police precinct and navigate an ivory tower and talk research, talk practice, and who can be credible messengers to both of those stakeholder groups about the importance of the other? And I really do think it is not hyperbolic to say the participants of that LEADS program do that better than anyone I know. I think about the great advancements as I know, evidence-based policing over the last 10 years is attributable to the incredible messengers that we have in the LEADS program who were doing network of closing that gap between research and practice.

You know the other thing, I think, that is really important to underscore is the fact that this program has sort of continue to grow across administrations. It doesn't matter who is in power. It seems like every NIJ Director since we have been founded has really supported this work though I absolutely have to call out Director La Vigne who from the very beginning embraces program and really intentional about elevating the people within it and it also of course have to call out Steve, for the incredible work he has done to make sure the program continues to grow and have a bigger impact.

[ Applause ]

Absolutely clap. But I also think it is really, really important to acknowledge the impact of those first couple of years of scholars.Nancy, and I had mentioned that at first, we were thinking way too small. We had no idea what we had. And when we saw the quality of the people who were coming through this program and their ability to advocate for their work, we knew we had to do more. I would tell you the first couple of classes of scholars, some of those who were on the stage, some of them were unapologetic and asking to make more room for change.

I have very vivid memories and I'm sure some of you in the room remember assistant attorney general Carol Mason. She first had been appointed, and she came and sat with our class 2 of scholars.And they somehow convince Carol to give so much of her discretionary money to them by the end of that dinner that they got more out of her then I would've gotten six months and like a dozen memos begging for cash. They really are incredible and advocating for the space to do the work and do it well.

But I think the thing that I sort of carry with me close is the way that folks in the LEADS program approached changing the police profession. I have been really lucky over the last 10 years to find myself in rooms that are dominated by participants in the LEADS program.

And there is a few sort of common themes that always seem to emerge in their discussion. Participants of this program share a reverence for the importance of the police profession in a fair and safe society. They also are able to acknowledge with humility the limitations of the profession as it currently exists, and they share an unequivocal commitment that the best path forward must be charted through data and science and evidence. And what that tells me is that the types of people who participate in a program like LEADS, they are the people we need architecting that fair and safer future.

And they are also the people that we need to make sure have positional authority to ensure that we are able to get to that fair and safer future whether it be as executives and law enforcement agencies or leaders in academia or beyond. These are the people that I want to follow into battle, and I think what the lease program does is set them up nicely to take on the mantle of leadership and transformational power.

But you should not take it for me. What we turn things over to the panel now so you could hear directly from them exactly everything that they are doing to advance the profession and address some critical issues.

Just so you know we will keep this super informal, conversational, and we will try to have some time at the end for questions from the audience because I am sure there are many.

First, we will give an open question to the panelists here. How has participation in the LEADS program impacted your career?

IVONNE ROMAN: For me I could say I could not imagine there was a world outside of local policing where I started out in Newark, New Jersey.You cannot see what you don't know.I did not know that there was something beyond what I was doing locally that there was really a whole universe available to me.

And so when I entered the LEADS program these doors opened up for me so I could do work with policy makers and do work at national, international level. We just got back from Greece. We were in Norway last year. It is much larger than I ever could've imagined, and these opportunities would it have been available to me had I'm not found the LEADS program and had access to the academics, the network, the information that then I can ground an argument for what was important to me and the work that we began to help the equity.

SHON BARNES: Thank you, Maureen and thank you, Nancy and all the folks at NIJ as well as my other NIJ scholars. I cannot wait to connect with you a little later on. For me, the LEADS program really has changed, not only my perspective on policing, but it has help me to reach my goals, but the network that we have, truly it has had an impact, a lifelong impact on my life.I was a 2015 member of the LEADS program attending my first major conference, which was the IACP conference I believe in Chicago.

And at the conference and article came out in the New York Times that said the Greensboro Police Department for which I worked was the face of racial profiling. And because I happen to be standing next to the Chief of Police at the time, he looked at me and said, hey, can you fix this?

[ Laughter ]

I think what he meant was can you let me know if this is a legitimate or not. But the good news is there was someone there by the name of Jeff Alpert who had recently published on this particular topic, an article that was entitled 'Toward a Better Benchmark' we begin to have conversations about understanding racial disparities and what it did was it led to me meeting with other researchers and doing our own studies and it led to me actually getting a Ph.D. about four years later because I did so much work and I was so interested in it.

But I would not have been able to answer some of those complex questions if it were not for the relationships that I developed at the LEADS program, from a good friend of mine, Corey Nelson, who at the time was at the Madison Police Department where I currently now served as Chief of Police. Our department has had five LEADS scholars including myself and the department is really leaning toward evidence-based policing, which I hope I can talk about a little bit later on.

And finally, the network I think has been one of the things that really tremendously influenced who I am as a leader, who I am as a professional. My job is to be able to solve complex programs. And the LEADS scholars program will not give the answer but teach you the right questions to ask in order to understand unit of analysis, which is so very important.

And finally, the Africans have a proper that I really like, and it basically says that a group of spiders can tie up a lien. And what that does is it speaks to the power of collective thought and went people worked together. And so being a part of the LEADS scholars program has really given me that network that I need. And no matter how complex the problem may be, even if it is a lion, I know that I have a group of men and women that I can call on each and every day that will help me type that problem up, and I appreciate it.

JEREMIAH JOHNSON: So I had a 20 plus career in municipal policing, small or midsize agency outside of New York City, a bedroom community. And it was a rather well-heeled community, and there was a contractual provision which essentially allow police officers to pursue education, 100% tuition, and even textbook admission. I took full advantage of it.

I did a master's degree, and then I ended up getting accepted to a Ph.D. program at John Jay in the. About a third of the way through my career I graduated from that program in 2015 probably after far too many years of my program folks were in the room. Thank you for your patience.

I considered at that time leaving and going into academia and going into the public policy space. And I cannot really say that staying in policing was the best decision I could have made. That is because of the LEADS scholars program. I was part of the 2016 cohort. One the things I really appreciate about the LEADS program is the diversity of the cohorts, and not just diversity of the actual scholars themselves, but the agencies in which they come from.

I was a sergeant from a smaller midsize agency, 51 sworn officers from the chief on down. As you know there's often a big city bias in policing research and for the National Institute of Justice to invite in somebody from a smaller jurisdiction was something that is really important not just for me as an individual but advancing policing research because as we know most jurisdictions are smaller or midsize. And so as a LEADS's scholar I had access to — some people already said the network — and I was able to bring in outside experts. I remember in the 2016 year, we brought in folks from Beta Gov, which is part of the Merrin Institute at NYU.

I was able to conduct a multisite RCT in my organization and some other Shoreline Community College around Connecticut. I have been trained as a social scientist, but within my own agency I was just a nerdy lease sergeant by bringing in some of the big guns I was able to get some of the research off of the ground. That is because of the lucky scholars program. I was also fortunate to network in this growing group of educated COPS. We refer to ourselves sometimes as pracademics or the "nerd herd."

But it was stimulative and got a lot of good conversations going. There was good research replication going and I think we created a policy community that really brought to bear, especially in the later years thinking back to the outbreak of COVID. This was, I guess, a group of probably about 100 folks at that time and were all around the country. Of course I was close to New York City, and we were able to share different innovations. So I think there has been a lot of diffusion from knowledge and interestingly enough probably the most unique vehicle among the LEADS scholars is eight WhatsApp chat group. There is a lot of information that flows in that chat group that has been really helpful.

So that network was also instrumental. I think I will have a chance to talk about it later on jumping from that midsize agency to a large city where I am now thanks to the leadership of another LEADS alumnus, Commissioner Lewis who brought me to the New York City Department of Corrections. It has been instrumental and probably the most impactful thing that has happened in my law enforcement career.

CHRISTIAN PETERSON: I will talk a little bit about it from the perspective as a non-sworn. It really starts with excitement. Every person in this room has a moment that they hated at their job, that they hated what they had to do. And I'm no different, probably more so than when I first started working at the Portland police Bureau. I was a crime analyst, and you would have thought my name wasn't Christian, but Noah. You would thought I came up with the idea because I was told no, no, no. I was looking up to have a mentor, Greg. He was one of the very first LEADS scholars. He said no a lot but then he also said "why" and allow me to elaborate. And I remember a story of a blind man and an evidence-based treatment and how you see and how you understand.

And what I was seeing when I heard "no," and what I was experience is that this is my lived experience and that you can't do evidence-based policing in a policing organization because I am just an analyst.

I am realizing that I only saw one side of it. And I realize there is only one kinds of people and this network we created is learning from them, taking their experiences, taking their successes and failures, and building off of it. Going to IACP again as a non-sworn, not very many of us there. Bringing it back when join the organization that I did not just go to a party.

Maybe I did, but I didn't just go to the parties. The last IACP, one of the lead scholars, Tarrick McGuire was presenting. I said, "How can I implement this in my own twist in our organization?" And we deployed that just two months ago. It is about really living and learning from these pieces, these people, and building off of the network.

JUSTIN NIX: I came to the program again from yet another path, as an academic. And you know I was studying for comprehensive exams and studying under Jeff Alpert at University of South Carolina and read all of these classic pieces of literature about how COPS are cynical and suspicious, and they hate researchers, and they don't trust them. But then to hear about this group of the nerd herd and the pracademics who are frustrated with the status quo and generally passionate about trying to affect change and going out and doing research anyway, even on their own.

Running RCTs and trying to look at individual agencies to try to answer important questions. And I graduated in 2015 and took a job at the University of Louisville. I continue to hear about this group, and I thought man I would like to hang out with these guys pick their brains. And you know I want to see what they are up to. And then I was excited. NIJ released his solicitation for academics to join the nerd herd. And I was fortunate to have been accepted. And for me it provided an opportunity to go to new conferences such as IACP that I never been to and network.

As a young academic, pre-tenure, Jeff trained me on doing applied research, doing research that we hope has real-world impact. But as any researcher, a researcher that doesn't have 40-50 years’ worth of a CV to help back them up and give them credibility or without a network that is built over career, can be a pretty daunting task. You know you feel like you don't have enough people. Like if only I had an agency that was willing to hear me out. And now I have that.

This LEADS family of 125 some odd people that care and want to know what works and what doesn't and want to do what works and not do what doesn't work. It has been a great experience for me.

MAUREEN MCGOUGH: Thank you so much. So if reflected a little bit about the program on people's professional develop it. Now I would like to broaden Lynn's just a little bit and see how the program has made a broader impact on policing overall. First, I want to acknowledge, and he saw this in the video, the establish of the American Society of evidence-based policing under Dr. René Mitchell's leadership.

There were, I think, five different LEADS scholars who were part of the founding members of that for 2015, and we did have the IACP sitting president, Jason POTS, Director of the Las Vegas Public Safety division on the schedule to speak out, but he got called away by City Council. But please know that that is another example of how the LEADS scholars are coming together and driving the field forward.

But now I would like to turn things over to you, Ivonne, to discuss things about advancing the women in policing.

IVONNE ROMAN: When I started the LEADS program in 2016, we were experiencing incredible attrition lost. I wasn't sure why it was happening. I did a deep dive into the literature with assistance from the researcher at the NIJ. We found it wasn't just a problem happening in Newark or New Jersey, but a problem across United States because the number of women in policing has stagnated to about 12%.

And so Mo, and I started talking about it and scheming on how we could address that. And she convened a breakfast at IACP in 2018 we brought together other women on that who worked LEADS scholars, and we gathered the perspectives to see if what I was observing in Newark was happening within their agencies where there was arbitrary fitness exams that weren't leading to attrition, where there were obstacles and challenges leading to women not being interested in careers in law enforcement. And we found that it indeed was a problem that was being experienced among our LEADS scholars, and that the research supported that there were benefits to increasing the number of women in policing.

We then went on and had the convening in Washington, DC hosted by NIJ with the scholars that we had cited in the literature, right? The people that we were building this case on were in the room. We had leaders throughout policing, not just in the United States, but from across Europe and, Canada. And we created a plan that was published by NIJ called 'Breaking Barriers and Lazing a Path.'

And that became a blueprint for what 30-by-30 is. It’s a grassroots effort with academics, research, policymakers, police to enhance the expenses of women entering policing so they are not just coming in and surviving, but they are also thriving, and the police community can reap the benefits of the research that is found to exist when you increase the representation of women in policing. The academics I reference in the literature now, they are not just people that I get starstruck by when I read the research. I can call him on the middle the night, I have a question you know I can conference and I'm really grateful for that, and all the support they provided.

DIRECTOR LA VIGNE: Thank you so much for that. Shon, same question to you, but regarding the 54th mile project.

SHON BARNES: Sure. Thank you, Ivonne and thank you, Mo for having the vision for putting forth the 30-by-30 initiative. Madison Police Department has 20% of our police force are women. We recently have had our first majority, minority, if you will police Academy two years ago. We want to continue that work. Thank you for having that vision. I just wanted to say that.

So what other things that we discovered, my network, was that we felt like something was coming, but we didn't know what and in 2018 there is a photo that was taken by Wendy's diaper who was a NIJ scholar. She was coming down an escalator. She looked over the escalator. And at the table was me, Maureen, Tarrick, and others. And if you know Tarrick McGuire, he is passionate. His hands are moving. And I'm looking.

And like Obed is leaning in and Maureen was typing on her computer. But what was going on is that Tarrick McGuire was telling us the vision about going to self doesn't settle in Alabama and spending time understanding what happened on bloody Sunday and this vision of what can we do next. What came about was an idea to go there, to spend time at Brown AME Chapel, to talk to some of the people still around, visit some of the museums and some of the sites, and then to walk 54 miles from Selma to Montgomery.

So we kind of put it up a little bit and you know each time we got together, Tarrick was say we have to do this. We felt like something was coming. And in 2020 happen. And certainly, we did not predict the pandemic, but certainly, we felt like something was happening. We were at a tipping point.

And so we began the process, and we did that walk. We took some videos and things on our cell phone, and we talked to folks. And what happened was that we had a self-funded documentary from that. And some of the funding came from our NIJ scholars partners that we reached out to and basically said this is the project we are trying to do. Can you cash app us? And they did without question. And so they certainly had a credit in the film. And the film is now being turned into a curriculum, a national curriculum so that everyone can learn from what happened that day, and what we can do to move the country forward.

One of the things that happen from the experience from people stopping during the two and half days it took us to walk 54 miles and ask us questions about why we were there and what is going on with the stated policing and what they want.

To what they want is very, very simple. People want us as police professionals, as researchers, as people who are vested in this thing we call criminal justice. They want us to be able to reduce crime, at the same time improving citizen satisfaction, with police services and we can do that for research. That is a research question, and we can do that through better training, tools, technology, teams, and that is what the LEADS scholarship program really has meant to me. It is an opportunity, if you will, to truly contribute to that body of research and we have been able to do that.

Of course there will be a research component to our training that we are doing in conjunction with the national is a tune of justice and also none of that really would have been possible without Maureen, without Jeff Alpert, and none of it could have been even remotely possible without Dr. Robin Ingle. I think she's here somewhere today. But I want to say thank you Robin for listening to us, believing in us and in helping us to apply. Research is very, very important.

MAUREEN MCGOUGH: Thank you so much for that. And I want to acknowledge because I know we have folks in the room at academic institutions and have an ability to develop curriculum. And I can tell you that the excellence of public safety program where we are building our master’s program, we heavily relied on the content generated out of the 54th mile. We heavily relied on the 30-by-30 framework to build inclusive community's. This really is not just about practice but expanding sort of the academic lens of some of the things happening in the field and making sure we can bring them in the classroom too so we can train the generation on this.

There is a ton of information available out of the projects available for you and I'm sure folks are able to talk you through it. I would love to turn it to you. Obviously, this is not the first time it happens. But Jeremiah briefly mentioned that he was brought into the Department of Corrections in New York City by Louis Molina who is in our first class of LEADS scholars. But Jeremiah actually wasn't the only LEADS scholar that Luis brought in. So your mic, can you talk about the evolution of that, and what it was like?

JEREMIAH JOHNSON: Yes. So certainly Louis Molina was brought to New York City under Mayor Adams I believe in January of '22. Shortly into his tenure. He brought in another LEADS scholar, Josh Young, who he made the Deputy Commissioner of a newly formed division, which was called the Office of Management analysis and planning, OMAP. And it essentially increased by orders of magnitude.

Just for purposes of background, the New York City Department of correction presently stands as a third large scale system in United States as measured by our custodial population, persons in custody. And being in New York City there is a comp-step process. But a lot of these meetings, was simply report counts, right? Outputs. A number of beds down, number of uses of force.

But what was really transformative through that development of OMAP is an opportunity to revise that whole system, which has happened under, continued under the new commissioner to really get to a root cause approach to a lot of these violence incidents of self-harm and to drive these numbers down. And so now OMAP has a whole unit that is focused on research and evaluation.

I was brought to the New York City Department of correction in 2023 along with scholar, Stu Greer who I believe was part of the 2016 or 2017 cohort. He was in OMAP, and I was appointed as an Assistant Commissioner over the training and develop a division, which oversees the training and professional development of all uniformed and non-uniform, essentially sworn and non-sworn staff in the New York City Department of correction.

These are sort of the two brain centers of the organization. And it has really been an incredible opportunity to try to integrate, take a data informed approach, and integrate research. It is interesting that Ivonne mentioned some of the things that she had noticed in the agility portion of New Jersey hiring.

One of the very first things I did when I came to the New York City Department of correction was look at the physical assessment. There was one particular component, which was a trigger pull test. And in New York City at the time there was a 12-pound pull trigger and I noticed it was having a huge adverse effect on our female applicants. Now the New York City Department of correction is quite diverse. We are about 40% female already. We exceeded the 30-by-30 goal.

It was having a negative impact. And one of the changes I was able to make right away was that Commissioner Molina had already taken steps to change the weapons platform to a Glock firearm, which had a five-and-a-half-pound trigger. They had not been delivered as of yet, but into the people going through the testing process would be trained on the new firearm. And I was in a position to make that change and change the trajectory of some of those applicants' careers. I stood back up a curriculum review committee. Department of Corrections may have been a very insular type of organization.

It is under a federal monitor ship that is facing potential receivership. I was able to bring in external academics to sit on that curricular review committee to get outside input and try to take an evidence-based or evidence-informed type of approach to the different issues that we are addressing in the Academy. And just one of the limitations — of course I'm swimming downstream. I am a policing practitioner moving into the corrections waters. And one of the things that I am finding is a lot the corrections literature is really based on state corrections, correction systems. There's not much research on jails. So I'm trying to drive that research forward.

One of the things I have learned is the academy experience can actually lessen recruits, intentions for retention. They come into the profession with expectations they will stay a certain number of years. And based on what they see and how they are treated in the academy, research has shown that state correction officers actually reduce the retention. I'm working with the researcher to make sure my Academy does not have the same experience and we are actually increasing adherence.

So all of these approaches trace back to the mindset that I have developed in the LEADS program and made possible through the network and essentially, bringing in bright minds who want to make a difference in the criminal justice space.

MAUREEN MCGOUGH: Thank you so much for that. I think the biggest take away there is if you are a newly appointed law enforcement, just higher three lead scholars, given the toughest gigs in your organization, and they will solve your problems. You heard it here first. Thank you, again to all of our guys, the pracademics. I would love to shift things over to now Christian and just into sort of reflect on your experience in this program and how it impacted the way you approach your work to rely on research and data and evidence, evidence-based practice.

CHRISTIAN PETERSON: I was looking at the research partner prime to be in the LEADS program. I'm very fortunate that I met at academic that wasn't one of these people that fluid to get data and Lee. I got to work at Portland State University's, Chris Henning, and he was really, really keen on wanting to be a partner and lead the police Bureau in a better place.And so I had that validation when I came to the LEADS program. But one of the pieces I really didn't have is I was somewhat of a fanboy when it comes to some of these academics, when I first met them, I was like oh, I read your stuff. I take an effort to read articles.

I recently adopted a little girl and so I don't get a lot of time. I wake up at five in the morning, and I read. That is my time to continue to advance what I am hearing in the world other than talking to the people that I network with. And so I would not have reached out. And this is like something fresh in my mind right now, so I am going with it. But we have a brand-new chief. And anybody who is heard me say that I've said it every year for the last decade. That is how many chiefs I have had. I'm always having a new chief and there's always a new initiative, and always a new desire of how to help and how do you create that.

And so my chief told me, what do you think we need to do if we are going to change right now. What do we need to do? And I said I have mentored evidence-based practitioners over the last decade. And I watched them all leave and move on to bigger and better things. I'm happy for every single one of them. But I would like to say if I am gone tomorrow that our organization will be better and our organization will have that foundation. And he said what duty? And I said let's try to do it. Like I said okay, you're not supposed to say, yes. You're always supposed to say no.

So what do I do next? And this is one of the things that, I think, the LEADS program helped me with. I did not really, know Jerry Radcliffe, but I e-mailed him and said, hey, we met at conferences. I kind of chatted with you little bit and I probably been one of the annoying guys in the back of the room asking you questions about what you did and how you did it. I reached out to Cynthia and asked for the same thing and asked for examples of their books, their articles, things they have done.

I talked to Ed Degill. And I think I probably harassed a dozen academics over a couple of week time frame to realize that although I know a lot about evidence-based policing, there is just so many more people that have so much information in this and the confidence to go up and share and ask and feel like I'm not going to get the door shut on me. That is really what I have taken back. And how it is changed my approach to that. I am not in a rush to get changed so much anymore. I realize that I don't just have one academic partner. I have the entire realm of academic partners as long as I take the time.

DIRECTOR LA VIGNE: Thank you so much for that. Justin?

JUSTIN NIX: Yes, for me generally speaking as an academic when I have a research question or something is trending in the news, and I want to know the answer the first place you turn is to the Google Scholar. What is the published literature saying about this? What is the evidence-based? And it opened my eyes involved in this program that there is a lot of great literature out there were agencies of already tried things and have a feel for what is working in their agency. Just a new way of thinking. If I have a quote-unquote new or novel idea, it probably is not. I can teleport to these guys and say what did you learn from your agency and learn about that before getting into concerns about publication bias and what not.

But give you two concrete examples of how it is in for my research since being in the program together. We were able to collect a pilot data from the police department. And emotional intelligence tools that actually translated into the NIJ funded de-escalation study that is still ongoing. But part of what we are doing in the agency when we are doing the work is informed by the pilot study that the chief was generous enough to give us access to his agency to give us numbers before, we were off and running with the project.

More recently in 2020, 2021, there was a lot of talk about the turnover and retention crisis in law enforcement and in the workforce more generally. This is another one of the cases where it is not like a national database for like officer implement and when they were hired and when they were let go or what not. But with Ian Adams and Scott Marcos and other couple of LEADS', academics, we thought weather is probably a lot of LEADS scholars who could tell us was going on in their agency, right?

And so we reached out and were able to get some data from a dozen or so agencies and write a paper and turn it over in 2020, 2021. And we learned some lessons a lot quicker than we might have been able to if we were waiting on some more traditional data sources to get filled up on it for me as an academic and think about the research that we do we can always turn to folks in the LEADS program and say what have you tried? Is there a possibility to try something there in your agency? What can you tell me? What can I learn from your agency?

MAUREEN MCGOUGH: Thank you for that. Great examples all the way around. I would love to shift to a broader discussion about sustainability and maximizing impact. Obviously, we think about the last 10 years, we've gone a long way in evidence-based policing being recognized as a critically important path forward for the police profession and improving public safety outcomes across communities, but we still have a long way to go before it is considered the status quo. I'm wondering if you can reflect for second on what it is that you think this group of people can do as a collective to further evidence-based policing and what role you think the LEADS program should play in that. Anybody?

SHON BARNES: I will take this one. For me — this is for the 47% of academics in the room going — according to the most recent survey. We have to learn how you have to show us how to collect data a positive outcome. We have so much data when things go wrong in policing, especially when it comes to special groups like school resource officers or drug units or the people who work in the community. And we are not collecting data on community engagement.

We are not collecting data on what really works to improve community member satisfaction with the Police Department. We need you to do that for us. If you've ever had the door slam shut in front of you from someone in policing it certainly is because of the approach and people are coming to police departments, policing in my experience I've been coming up in three police departments.And they want to study something that happened that was terrible or some bad event. I get that. There's a lot to learn from that. But usually we can tell you within two minutes what happen. But what we are not doing is showing the entire picture about policing. There is still a lot of men and women who come to work every single day, and they want to make their community's better.

There is still a lot of men and women who come to work every single day, and they are willing to lay down your life for absolutely everyone in this room and anyone that needs it.We are not capturing what that is, and we are doing ourselves a disservice when it comes to research when we don't have that positive outcome and positive stories and we are not talking to folks. A research project that might, myself and Tarrick McGuire or talking about is how can communities heal after law enforcement shootings. And so we did some interviews, some qualitative stuff down in Norman in whom, Sacramento California, Salisbury, North Carolina, and there was another one that I can't remember.

But nonetheless we were talking to people and getting this great deal of information about well you know I appreciate it that I had trust in the police chief, and they let us know when they did well and when we did not do well. People can be invisible. I know it is like all of this information that was so rich that we used to go back, and we shared it with other LEADS scholars. I think we may have presented it once in a IACP commerce. But I don't know who was asking the questions.

You mature you know the answer to that. But I know we are going to sustain this. And the last thing I will say is we are all connected, everyone. And so you want to do research on something then you have to let us know. I have had researchers call me from George Mason and other places, Georgetown actually recently said Hey do you know these five police chiefs? I did not know all five, but I knew all three of them and they were in three different states. And I picked up the phone call that's a pic the phone and called. And they said you should talk to Dr. So-and-So. And I think that is what the lead scholars can do. It is understanding how to collect data on positive outcomes. But the connectivity, and certainly if you go on the website, and you see a LEADS scholar in that state probably I will probably tell you they know the chief that you need to talk to in order to get access to that information.

So please use us as a resource.

CHRISTIAN PETERSON: I was going to say communicate. That is one of my biggest things that we as LEADS scholars continue to need to do. That is communicate internally, externally. When I think of — you know we have a lot of federal funders here for grants and people do all kinds of amazing things. The grant ideas that come out are really, really informative. But how many people within their own organization got the grant, do they even know about the grant? If you communicate you have a grant, what the findings were, especially when they don't work. Some of the best things I've learned about being a LEADS scholar is when people have tried something, and it is failed, than I can learn how I might want to adopt it, change it, modified — modify it.

People I think you know being willing to present the null findings, with things are not working from a LEADS perspective, from an academic perspective, and from the federal grantees, and I've been on grants where we have done a full randomized controlled trial. Good luck finding the results of that because it didn't go the way it was supposed to. I have it. I don't think anybody else has ever read it. But just the communicating of all of the different parts of that process so when people are moving forward, and we talk about implementation science that we know like it was a process, was the process the failure? Was the outcome the failure? How can we modify that in the future?

JEREMIAH JOHNSON: I think after 10 years we are at the point where evidence-based policing has entered the lexicon of police chiefs. But I think one of the roles of the LEADS scholars community is keeping that word from being misused. We saw this with community policing back in the '80s and '90s where the executives can sort of construct their own version of community policing, which really got away from the fundamental tenets.

So one of my big fears is that EBP would become a buzzword that would be used inappropriately and that police executives we cherry pick findings to justify certain strategies, which might be harmful to communities. So I think one of the responsible is that we had as lead scholars is to keep that movement. In the practitioner world. But we definitely need help from the folks in the room. I know the incentive structure isn't what it should be, but definitely creating summaries of research that are accessible to practitioners I think is very important.

I think many LEADS scholars have tried this themselves as far as publishing in practitioner or practitioner journal, practitioner-firmly journals. I remember I once wrote an article about P values for practitioners just trying to educate folks on what that means. And so I think those aren't the types of things that we can do and also just reaching out to our brothers and sisters in the policing profession. I liken this awakening almost two like a conversion experience. It completely changes your mindset, the way in which you view problems and solutions. And so often when there are interventions in the policing space and you do see a shift in the numbers, we immediately attribute it to the intervention itself without considering other variables when it doesn't go the way it was planned just as a national trend. So thinking more critically about interventions is important and that is what we need to push forward.

SHON BARNES: Cannot trademark that for a T-shirt? The P value for police?

DIRECTOR LA VIGNE: Great. Thank you so much. Was sort of final long question for the panelists for final remarks. They will open it up for questions. I want to read a few stats. We have a half-dozen LEADS scholars recognize as joining the LEADS' program through IACP. We have had 13 who have been inducted into the Hall of Fame, some of them sitting here today.

We don't have the exact numbers, but we know it is probably north of a dozen research projects and publications that have come out the relationships between these scholars, and these academics, and these LEADS civilians, and since joining the program over 30 law enforcement scholars have risen to the rank of police executives and again some of them are on the stage with us today. And I worked at NIJ long enough to know that correlation does not equal causation. I am not suggesting that the LEADS program is working in anyway, but I know Dr. Ian Adams who is an academic has some thoughts about how we can evaluate the program if anyone knows any federal funders who might be interested in understanding what is going on here.

I don't want to just say that I think the LEADS program is working unnecessarily, but it seems like it is having an impact and reaching a very particular type of practitioner and scholar and civilian. I am sure there are people in this audience who are interested in understanding how this program can expand. They might bethinking about how to expand it to a stakeholder group.

And I'm wondering if you could take a couple of seconds a reflect on what are the strengths of this model. Not why it is working per se, but white is persisting? Why does it seem to be having this kind of impact on the field?

IVONNE ROMAN: I think it provides opportunities to expand, not only your network, your knowledge base, but also access to experts, and it positions you to also be that person who is now an expert. When I came in, I was taking a deep dive into the literature, and now I have academics asking we serve on the Advisory Board if I start this initiative and we serve on this nonprofit board?

Or will you serve as the Society for evidence-based policing? These are opportunities that would not have been available to me had I'm not found NIJ, not found our peers and connected with academics. It gives you a broader perspective of what your career can be, and what opportunities are available and what path you can take.

SHON BARNES: Just very quickly, I think it is working because it is one thing to be able to have an idea. It is another thing to make that idea a reality and another thing to evaluate that and determine if your reality is actually true and based in science. That is what the program is doing. By doing that I do believe that our projects are really affecting communities and indeed with the 30-by-30 and other initiatives, we are starting to see the entire effect on the country. We have to continue with this program and continue what we are doing and point the energy in it. And we can really affect change in this country.

JEREMIAH JOHNSON: I think this program is connecting a virtual circle here. A lot of the LEADS scholars come into the program because they have advanced degrees. They have obtained those degrees usually at institutions that are serving practitioners. I know many people in this room, a lot of their focus or at least their passion is in research. By investing in the classroom, especially when you have a practitioner sitting maybe in the back of the room, maybe after a night shift, they are awakening those corners of their mind and they are working their way into the LEADS scholars program and through that process, they are coming out on the research side and collaborated with academics. So I think that is what is perpetuated in this group.

CHRISTIAN PETERSON: I cannot concur more with what everybody said. I would just say that as time has gone by all of us have that moment where we want to retire, we want to quit, we want to stop. But we don't. We can see that the things that were driving us from the very beginning. It is in other people. By being around people who are like-minded, we are continuing to expand our thought processes. And that is pushing us to continue to drive on and deal with a new challenge, with the new day.

JUSTIN NIX: I think it is working. And I think the reason it has a state itself this long is the core group that was there when it started. And as it expanded it has been comprised of highly motivated individuals who want this thing to succeed. And I think from the academics perspective, it was a really, smart choice to go after a younger generation of scholars who were still quote-unquote hungry, and not to talk bad of my elders, but like they have had productive careers and had a million things going on because of who they are. And I think it was a good move to go after people who have a career ahead of them to continue building networks and working together hopefully for long time. So I was very pleased to see another cohort of academics, and I really do believe in this program. I want to see excess he. That is my $0.02.

DIRECTOR LA VIGNE: They give that. Lightening round. Closing remarks. 30 seconds from each of you before we go to questions. Who wants to go first?

JUSTIN NIX: I will exceed my 30 seconds.

CHRISTIAN PETERSON: I am never shy for talking. So I would just say that when you are at this conference, when you are at any conference, we have the opportunity to get to know new people. Those relationships, just like the LEADS scholars, it has built a foundation of relationships and how you continue to leverage and learn from those. Just continue to build relationships and continue to move forward.

JEREMIAH JOHNSON: I would like to express my gratitude to a right he was involved and continues to be involved in the NIJ scholars and I really, now that I'm swimming downstream in corrections, I would really like to see a comparable program built out for the correction space.

SHON BARNES: I want to also thank everyone for this opportunity and final thoughts when it comes to bridging the gap between research and what we do as pracademics, if you will, or people who are in it. That we have to continue to improve. That is the only thing that matters. Success is not final. Failure is not fatal.

IVONNE ROMAN: The beauty of this program is a network. So those that are new that are coming in, lead on the network. Lien on the scholars. Create the relationships. Because what I'm doing now would not have been possible had I'm not came into the network, had we not been able to tap into the LEADS scholars to be the first agencies to sign into the 30-by-30 pledge. Lean into each other and create there's relationships that will last you the rest of your career.

MAUREEN MCGOUGH: Thank you. Please join me in thanking our panel.

[ Applause ]

Really, really grateful for your insights. Okay, Steve, I know you're out there somewhere with timecards, but we cannot see anything with lies. Do we have time for questions? Yes?So there should be — I am still guessing. I am told there are microphones. Is that, right? Yes? Okay. I think we have about 10 minutes for questions. Please go ahead and hop on the microphone and don't hesitate to ask any of your burning questions now. If not, I have got 17 of them in my back pocket. But I figure there's probably a lot you want to know.

GUEST: Hello. My name is Monique Kelly, and I am here from the Department of Veterans Affairs. And like law enforcement, there is always a little bit of pushback on new implementation and new practices. But they are still really important. So I was wondering how many of the LEADS projects or programs are now being implemented?

MAUREEN MCGOUGH: Is the question how many specific initiatives have come out of the LEADS program in terms of novel strategies?

GUEST: How many novel strategies have actually been successfully implemented?

MAUREEN MCGOUGH: Does NIJ have data on that? Or is that part of Dr. Adams coming work and evaluation? So I don't think we have like exact numbers, but we certainly have got specific examples of how that has manifested in the field if it is helpful.

GUEST: Okay. All right.

GUEST: Okay, so has there been any like look at what factors allowed things to be more successfully implemented? Or across-the-board, are they all just generally implements as well?

MAUREEN MCGOUGH: Does anybody want to take this? Otherwise, I can get to any of the implementation scientist we have in the room. 'S before I can say off of the top of my head just talking to this group. Obviously, we talked about 30-by-30. We talked about the 54th mile. We talked about the steady blue lights. There was something that came up after that. We have an opportunity to plug. But with this group does is we kinda get together at their conferences and meetings that we have we talk about what may be promising and what may work for your particular problem. We have a very robust once app and text group we talk about we are implementing and the things we are doing within our own particular agency.

I think the genius in this program is that most of the people when they enter are at the mid-level. I think that is where we need to put our focus and I think NIJ was correct in that. That is where you are trying to figure out. You have some responsibility for implementing things but not everything. So you get an opportunity to see it from the middle level. And as you rise throughout the agency you can implement things with more and more structure and for me, I came in as a Lieutenant, and I came in do a couple of different agencies before becoming a cheap. Now I know what I can do, and what I can implement based on what I learned, and I think that is the best way forward.

CHRISTIAN PETERSON: To follow-up with that, had there been things that were unsuccessful? 100% there were things that were not implemented as intended. I think that goes with everybody when they are doing things. I think like one of the big takeaways is that not all of the evidence-based practices are like big models that we are going to try to deploy across the nation. Some of them are small rural agencies and some of them are midsize agencies. We talk to them about are they generalizable to the populations and can we replicate these moving forward?

And I think that there have been multiple successes and how it has driven the way we have done things. We may have had an existing grant that we would not have done the way we did it. But the network and the group that we have, we built it anymore evidence-based approach.

IVONNE ROMAN: I think you have to be cognizant there is lessons to be learned even with something not implement successful. You can learn from it and make sure it is not repeated, and you understand why something has failed and that can be a learning lesson in, and of itself and not just the successful implementation, but why other things have not worked.

MAUREEN MCGOUGH: —

GUEST: , Joe Wells, Lehigh Valley justice is a two. We are community-based data-driven research agency, and we have got several chiefs in the Lehigh Valley area Pennsylvania who are implementing very progressive reforms and in responder models and disclosure of use of force. And I'm curious to what you perceive our role could be in encouraging other chiefs to follow their examples or whether in fact, our efforts in that regard might be counterproductive in the minds of the other chiefs.

IVONNE ROMAN: As four 30-by-30 what we've done is create a community practice where our chiefs can learn from each other, so they are not replicating the wheels. They can know what is successful in one agency and applied to another. There's a transfer of knowledge. It is important to create that community where these ideas can be exchanged and there can be buy-in from individuals by hearing what their successes and failures or.

MAUREEN MCGOUGH: Just to build on Ivonne's point a little bit on the question before, I think we seemed the most success uptick of knowledge when chiefs learned it from other chiefs. It is even more powerful we learn about the power of the evaluation and understand why something works. But I think this is probably the group to chat with afterwards if you want to talk specific strategies and how to support broad scale implementation. That is great. Really good to hear.

GUEST: Dr. Denise Valenti. I am CEO of I am 80 measurement, marijuana, and driving. We are currently funded by NIJ. Thank you. I'm going to start with my question and give you some background. You mentioned gender. We in my experience being only 10 years into our study of marijuana impaired driving, I have had a huge career where I never experienced gender problems.

Even though I was often the only woman in the room, it was in medicine, but for the first time in my state there was constant barriers being female. I did not experience that in other marijuana states, just my own, uniquely my own state I think is the only state, Massachusetts, that does not allow DRE expertise in the courtroom. My question is, could there have been a resource for me to help me deal with that? Because it was quite unique. And, again, I've been around a long time. And I just worked around it, which was very difficult.

MAUREEN MCGOUGH: I want to make sure I understand your question. You're looking for resource?

GUEST: Is the resources now? For me I have dealt with it. But I was specifically excluded from a lot of activities because I was female.

MAUREEN MCGOUGH: One, I would highly encourage you to engage with the 30-by-30 website. We have publicly available the What Works Compendium, the start to get into literature about how to start to tear down some of the barriers depending on what the source is of the opposition you experience. The other thing to think about is it tends to be pretty specific to profession. But specifically 30-by-30 or we look at the representation of women sworn in police departments we work really closely with professional associations like gnarly and with all who bring together other women in situations can share promising practices with each other and create the community of practice that you've on mentioned earlier. Unfortunately, I don't know for your stakeholder group, but we should chat afterwards.

GUEST: The good thing is, is people are retiring.

[ Laughter ]

SHON BARNES: Can I say something? Continue to build your net worth and your coalition. When I hear things like that it doesn't make me feel good. It actually makes me angry if you want to know the truth about it. No matter what the demographic might be, we are supposed to be equitable, and you know to quote someone, sometimes you have to kick that door in, and you have to let people know who you are, and that you are going to bring value to this particular program, and you have to be able to call people out on their behavior, and you cannot take no for an answer. That is one of the things that, I think, throughout my entire career if I take a no every time somebody said it, we would not be sitting here. I was listening to what you are saying, and I can identify with that. And don't take no for an answer. Build your coalition. If they want to open the door, kick it in.

DIRECTOR LA VIGNE: I want to thank these panelists, including Mo, for an excellent discussion about an amazing program and I'm looking forward to the next 10 years of LEADS and what it will offer and what it will yield in terms of future leaders and more evidence-based policing. So please join me in thanking the panel again.

[ Applause ]

DIRECTOR LA VIGNE: And can anyone guess what I am going to say next? Can I see a QR code? Do we have one? Did we put one for this? Okay, go into your app, fill out the evaluation form. Enjoy your next session and enjoy Pittsburgh this evening. Thank you.

[ Applause ]

[ Music playing ]