Student Research

Is working as a research consultant with the Crime Lab at UofC on various projects that explore the following dimensions:

– mental health provision for law enforcement officers

– trauma-informed police responses

– de-escalation strategies

Is studying gang wars, particularly focusing on drug-dealing gangs–likely only in Chicago. I’m interested in the question of variance in violence severity in gang wars.

Variables Pat hopes to test are the impact of particular types of police enforcement efforts, and the role of neighborhood geography and local community members in shaping violence levels.

Pat has an M.A. from the poly sci department at UChicago, where he mainly studied counterinsurgency/insurgency with Paul Staniland as his thesis advisor.

Pat is hoping to bring the conflict literature from poly sci together with the gang/violence literature from criminology.

Past experience includes being a journalist covering gang violence and working for a gang intervention nonprofit as a researcher.  Now Pat serves as a CPD patrol officer in the 011th district, which covers West Garfield Park and the lower east corner of Humboldt Park.

Rafa has worked under Dr. McCarty for a number of projects that explore the effects of body worn cameras (BWCs) on multiple aspects of policing. One project of particular note has recently been published (titled “Body-worn cameras and arrest: Zooming in on disaggregated metrics and possible unintended consequences”)  that focused on disaggregating arrests into various categories that could be measured independent of one another to see what, if any, effect BWCs had on arrest rates across specific classifications (drug vs theft etc).

Another project currently under research focuses on BWCs and their effect on police use of force. The theoretical assumption at play for both of these projects hypothesizes that BWCs would, (though some would argue “should”) decrease both arrest rates and instances where police engage in any type of use of force. However, the literature has been mixed on the effectiveness of BWCs and this current work is still under preperation

Chris is founder of a 501(c)3 called A Way In, which works to increase accessibility to higher education for people with felony convictions.  Chris work directly with formerly-incarcerated individuals and assist them with application, admission, course selection and navigating the financial aid process, while providing ongoing support during their education.  Chris himself is a formerly incarcerated person and has spoken in numerous classes, on NPR and WILL radio, and with anyone who will listen, in an attempt to destigmatize this population.

Chris also founded a registered student organization at UIUC called TIME Scholars, which organized events countering mass incarceration which hopes to restart at UIC soon.

Torey is currently doing research with UChicago on the cost of criminalization within North Lawndale. Outside of that, Torey’s dissertation research looks into the impact of restorative justice within CPS schools.

Keith’s dissertation research focuses on the relationship between closed-circuit television surveillance and crime.

Emily presently works for COPA and is interested in mindfulness interventions and officer wellness. Emily is on her first year as a PhD student within the department of Criminology at UIC.

Almethia is currently working with fellow CLJ classmate and Phd Student Veronica Shepp to create a 3-part dialogue series addressing the perspectives of CLJ scholars in this time of social change.  The following students that are currently involved in organizing this series are fellow CLJ PhD students Luz, Kayla, Brandi, Ermus, Keith, and Ash.

The goal is to address a variety of topics including our department’s pedagogy, scholarship, funding and research in areas such as policing, research with community based organizations, and working within a department with diverse scholars that are either pro-or anti- policy/procedure (or in-between).

Most of Ermus’s academic endeavors are directly or indirectly related to policing. With regard to teaching, Ermus has taught a policing course in the CLJ department (CLJ 345).

In terms of research, Ermus is part of a research team led by Dr. McCarty, that is involved in an ongoing examination of body-worn cameras (BWCs) in the Chicago Police Department (CPD). Moreover, Ermus’s dissertation project is also related to policing. Specifically, this dissertation study will use survey and interview data to examine police receptivity to and attitudes toward BWCs and understand what factors have shaped those views. \

The goal of this dissertation study and future research is to help the CPD and local police agencies, more broadly, optimize BWCs and other adopted technologies.

Currently, Hialy is working on impact evaluation design and implementation for Cure Violence Global. As the discourse is advancing on alternative approaches to policing, CVG is scaling up across the states. Hialy has been training over 400 violence interrupters and outreach workers over the summer on new data collection instruments that I developed in collaboration with credible messengers.

Additionally, Hialy started a mutual aid ice cream company: www.justicecream.org , that will be funding abolitionist labor (there’s a video in the link for those interested in learning more).

Ash’s dissertation project is on policing and surveillance of trans, gender nonconforming, and nonbinary people. It includes policing by actual 1) police officers, 2) TSA agents, 3) people who work for government agencies (like people who work at the DMV), and 4) neighborhood and community policing (like police officers but also by family and other community members).

Ash is also organizing with the Abolition at UIC collective to push UIC to divest from policing and invest in students.