As communities across the country grapple with the complexities of implementing police reform at multiple levels and across jurisdictions, many have struggled to identify and institutionalize policing practices that are demonstrably effective, legitimate, and sustainable. Evidence-Based Policing, an approach that promotes the use of research, evaluation, analysis, and scientific processes in law-enforcement decision making, seeks to bridge that gap; by using the best available evidence to inform and challenge policing policies, practices and decisions, Evidence-Based Policing (EBP) aims to translate research and evidence into increased operational effectiveness and reduction of harm in daily police activities.
On Tuesday, October 11, 2022 NACOLE welcomed Dr. Cynthia Lum, Ph.D., University Professor of Criminology, Law and Society and director of George Mason University’s Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy. to provide a grounding in evidence-based policing. The discussion focused on what EBP is, where and how it is employed currently, its contribution and results, and how a research and evidence-based approach can potentially apply to police oversight and police reform strategies.
Dr. Lum is a leading authority on evidence-based policing, an approach that advocates that research, evaluation, and scientific processes should have “a seat at the table” in law enforcement policymaking and practice. She has studied and written extensively about patrol operations and police crime prevention activities, police technology, investigations and detective work, and evidence-based crime policy. Additionally, she has developed numerous tools and strategies to translate and institutionalize research into everyday law enforcement operations.
Professor Lum is an elected Fellow of the American Society of Criminology. She is an appointed member of the Committee on Law and Justice (CLAJ) for the National Academies of Sciences (NAS) and has served on the NAS’s ad hoc committees on Proactive Policing and Evidence to Advance Reform in the Global Security and Justice Sectors. She is an appointed member of the Council on Criminal Justice's Policing Task Force, a Board Director for the National Police Foundation, and has served numerous elected and appointed positions within the American Society of Criminology. She is the founding editor of Translational Criminology Magazine and was the first North American Editor for the Oxford Journal Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice. Dr. Lum is a Fulbright alum and is the co-Founder/Director of the International Summer School for Policing Scholarship, developed with Nick Fyfe at the Scottish Institute for Policing Research and with partners at Arizona State University. Her recent book with Christopher Koper, Evidence-Based Policing: Translating Research Into Practice (Oxford University Press), received the American Society of Criminology Division of Policing 2020 Outstanding Book Award. Professors Lum and Koper are the Editors-In-Chief of Criminology and Public Policy, the flagship policy journal of the American Society of Criminology.