Policing Crisis Conference

On May 20-21, the University at Albany’s Rockefeller College of Public Affairs & Policy will host the interdisciplinary “Policing Crisis Conference” in person on UAlbany's Downtown Campus. How governments approach enforcing their laws and policies has been the subject of increasing political and social contention locally, nationally, and internationally. This conference adopts a broad approach for understanding “policing crisis” that includes not only military intervention and law enforcement, but the state’s punitive management of social crises, including poverty, mental illness, and violence. Our concept of policing includes both the repressive “right hand” of the state and the increasingly punitive welfarist “left hand.” 

The conference will feature four panels on the topics of comparative perspectives on policing, legitimacy and policing, policing and governance, and the use of independent police review boards. There will be presentations from internationally renowned experts and resident scholars from Rockefeller College, the School of Criminal Justice, the Department of Sociology, and the College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security, and Cybersecurity. Former journalist and Princeton Assistant Professor Jonathan Mummolo will provide a keynote talk. For graduate students and interested faculty, Professor Mummolo will give a brief workshop on the research methodologies he employs on Saturday afternoon. 

The “Policing Crisis Conference” is open to the entire UAlbany campus community free of charge. We foresee many opportunities for audience engagement throughout the event and we welcome our colleagues from across the university to come join what promises to be a vigorous conversation about policing in the 21st century. Coffee will be provided in the mornings and lunch will be provided on both Friday and Saturday. 

(Registration is closed.) 

Husted Hall Amphitheater
University at Albany, SUNY Downtown Campus
135 Western Ave. Albany, NY 12222

Victor Asal, University at Albany

Regional Law Enforcement Strategies Applied to Hate Organizations

Victor Asal is Director of the Center for Policy Research and Professor of Political Science at Rockefeller College, University at Albany SUNY. He is a Research Associate of the National Center for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START). His first area of research focuses on the choices of violence by non-state actors. To do this research he has collaborated to create organizational yearly datasets that allow for a variety of analyses. One such dataset is the Big Allied and Dangerous Dataset that collects data on insurgent and terrorist organizations worldwide. The second is the Minorities at Risk Organizational Behavior Dataset that collects data on both violent and nonviolent ethnopolitical minority organizations. His second area of research focuses on the causes of political discrimination by states against sexual minorities, women and ethnic groups. In addition, Prof. Asal has done work on using simulations to teach.  

Erica DeBruin, Hamilton College

The Global Spread of Militarized Policing

Erica De Bruin is an Associate Professor of Government at Hamilton College. She is the author of How to Prevent Coups: Counterbalancing and Regime Survival (Cornell University Press, 2020), as well as articles on civil-military relations, policing, and civil war. Her current research focuses on the global spread of militarized policing, as well as the determinants of civilian support for armed groups. Dr. De Bruin received a PhD from Yale University in 2014. At Hamilton, she serves as the Director of the Program in Justice and Security at the Arthur Levitt Public Affairs Center. 

Angélica Durán-Martínez, UMass-Lowell

Gang Politicization? Between Iron Fist and Truces in Belize and El Salvador

Angelica Duran-Martinez is an associate professor of Political Science and Director of the Global Studies PhD Program at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell. Her research interests include the relations between organized crime, violence, and the state in Latin America, drug policy, and the interconnections between criminal and political violence. Her research has received funding from the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), the Social Science Research Council (IDRF-SSRC), the Open Society Foundation through the Drugs, Security, and Democracy fellowship, and the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation. She is the author of The Politics of Drug Violence: Criminals, Cops, and Politicians in Colombia and Mexico (Oxford University Press, 2018), winner of the best book prize from the International Association for the Study of Organized Crime, and of the Peter Katzenstein book award for best first book in international relations, comparative politics, or political economy. She has also published several book chapters and articles in numerous journals including Comparative Political Studies, the Journal of Conflict Resolution, Journal of Peace Research, Latin American Politics and Society, Comparative Political Studies, and Crime, Law and Social Change. She holds a PhD in Political Science from Brown University, an MA in Latin American and Caribbean Studies from New York University, and a BA in Political Science from Universidad Nacional de Colombia.

Brandon Behlandorf, University at Albany

Governance Needs Data: The Uneven Coverage of Policing Requests Across the United States

Brandon Behlendorf, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security, and Cybersecurity at the University at Albany (SUNY) and Deputy Director of the Center for Advanced Red Teaming (CART). Dr. Behlendorf's research utilizes interdisciplinary approaches to address policy-relevant problems within domestic and national security, drawing on theories and methods from social and computational sciences. Funded by the Departments of State, Defense, Justice, and Homeland Security, as well as National Science Foundation, his research has focused on a broad range of applications, including: police legitimacy in developing countries; geospatial modeling of criminal and terrorist activity; network vulnerabilities of illicit trafficking networks; game theoretic approaches to border security; and WMD-related innovations by state and non-state actors. He received his PhD in Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Jonathan Dirlam, University at Albany

Police Organizational Policies and Police Lethal Force

Jonathan Dirlam joined the Department of Sociology as an assistant professor in Fall 2020, where he teaches courses on the sociology of law, juvenile delinquency, and statistical methods. He earned his PhD from Ohio State University and recently completed postdoctoral research at Pennsylvania State's Criminal Justice Research Center.

Virginia Eubanks, University at Albany

Debt, Fraud, Data and the Automated Welfare State: Policing Insecurity

Virginia Eubanks is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University at Albany, SUNY. She is the author of Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor; Digital Dead End: Fighting for Social Justice in the Information Age; and co-editor, with Alethia Jones, of Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around: Forty Years of Movement Building with Barbara Smith. Her writing about technology and social justice has appeared in The American Prospect, The Nation, Harper’s and Wired. She is currently working on a memoir about community violence, PTSD, and caregiving and, with Andrea Quijada, gathering oral histories of the global automated welfare state for Voice of Witness. She is a 2022 scholar-in-residence at the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC).

Tim Weaver, University at Albany

Race, Class, and Ideology and the Rise of the Carceral State

Timothy Weaver is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science. He previously held the post of assistant professor of urban politics at the University of Louisville. Dr. Weaver holds a BA (Hons.) in Philosophy and Politics from the University Of Durham (U.K.) and an MA and PhD in Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of Blazing the Neoliberal Trail: Urban Political Development in the United States and the United Kingdom (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016) and coeditor (with Richardson Dilworth) of How Ideas Shape Urban Political Development(University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020). His research interests include urban policy and politics, urban political economy, American political development, the role of ideas, political institutions, British politics, race and class. At Rockefeller College, he teaches classes in American Political Development, Comparative Urban Politics, and Race, Class, and Culture in American Politics, State and Local Politics, and Urban Politics and Policy. He serves on the editorial board of the Urban Affairs Review.

Jonathan Mummolo, Princeton University

Studying Racial Bias in Policing With Incomplete Information

Jonathan Mummolo is an Assistant Professor of Politics and Public Affairs at Princeton University. He studies bureaucratic politics and political behavior, and devotes particular focus to law enforcement agencies and police-civilian interactions. His work explores several facets of policing, including how controversial tactics are deployed in time and space, how rules and procedures affect the nature and volume of police-civilian interactions, the role of race in police behavior, and how police tactics affect perceptions of law enforcement and crime. He also conducts methodological research on issues relevant to his substantive work, including causal inference, statistical modeling and experimental design. Jonathan’s work exploits a range of research designs and data sources including field, natural, and survey experiments, qualitative interviews and administrative records obtained through public information requests to government agencies. His research has appeared in American Political Science Review, The Journal of Politics, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and Science, among other peer-reviewed journals. He received a BA from New York University and a PhD from Stanford University. Before beginning his doctoral studies Jonathan was a staff writer at The Washington Post where he covered crime and politics in the Washington, D.C. region.

Brendan Cox, LEAD National Support Bureau

Chief (Ret.) Brendan Cox is the Director of Policing Strategies at the LEAD National Support Bureau where he provides strategic guidance on the implementation of Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion/Let Everyone Advance with Dignity to jurisdictions around the world. Brendan was previously employed with the Albany, New York police department where he retired as Chief of Police in 2017. He served in numerous capacities in the Albany police department including overseeing its Special Operations Unit and Children and Family Services Unit. He rose through the ranks to become the Commander of Investigations, Assistant Chief of Operations and Deputy Chief. In July of 2015 he was appointed Chief of Police. In 2016, under Brendan's leadership, the Albany police department was recognized by the Department of Justice as one of the top 15 police departments in the country as part of the COPS Advancing 21st Century Policing Initiative. This was a direct result of strategies that were implemented on community policing and procedural justice platforms aimed at building positive relationships with the community. Included in these strategies were the implementation of a Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) initiative, a Safeguarding Children of Arrested Parents training and protocol, and training around implicit bias for both police employees and the community. Brendan has a Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice from the University of Dayton and a Master of Public Administration from Marist College. He is a graduate of the Police Executive Research Forum’s Senior Management Institute for Police. He is a member of the New York State Juvenile Justice Advisory Group and was appointed to the New York Governor’s Workgroup to Draft Legislation for Regulated Adult-Use Marijuana Program in 2018. Brendan is an adjunct professor with the State University of New York at Delhi. He is an Executive Fellow with the Police Foundation, a speaker for the Law Enforcement Action Partnership, and a member of the Global Law Enforcement and Public Health Association. He sits on several local board of directors including the Albany Police Athletic League and the LaSalle School of Albany. 

Matt Ingram, University at Albany

Matthew C. Ingram is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Rockefeller College. His research examines justice sector reforms, judicial behavior, and violence in Latin America. Holding a law degree (2006) and a PhD in political science (2009) from the University of New Mexico, Ingram studies the political origins of institutional change and judicial behavior in the region's justice systems, focusing on sub-national courts in Brazil and Mexico. He draws also on a family history in Mexico (dual citizen, U.S. and Mexico), extensive fieldwork in Latin America, and seven years of professional experience in law enforcement in California. Ingram's academic work has appeared in several peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes. His book, Crafting Courts in New Democracies: The Politics of Subnational Judicial Reform in Brazil and Mexico (Cambridge University Press, 2016), examines the causal role of ideas in shaping local court reforms in Latin America's two largest democracies and markets.Ingram's research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, and the Fulbright Commission. Prior to arriving at Rockefeller, Ingram held post-doctoral fellowships at the UC San Diego's Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies (2009-2010) and Notre Dame’s Kellogg Institute (2011-2012). He was also an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth (2010-2011). In 2012-2013, Ingram will offer courses in Comparative Judicial Politics, Comparative Criminal Procedure, and Latin American Politics. Prof. Ingram, born and raised in Mexico, speaks English, Spanish, and Portuguese.

Rachel Novick, University at Albany

Assessing Partisan Differences in Public Support for Independent Review Boards in American Policing

Robert E. Worden, University at Albany

Complaining Against or About the Police: Citizens Perceptions, Options, and Choices

Robert E. Worden is an associate professor of criminal justice at the University at Albany, SUNY, and the director of the John F. Finn Institute for Public Safety. He holds a PhD in political science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Professor Worden’s research interests include: police behavior and police misconduct; bureaucratic and external mechanisms of control of police; the effects of police strategies, programs, and practices; and public attitudes toward police.

Chris Herring, UCLA and Harvard University

Complaint Oriented Policing: Legitimating the Criminalization of Homelessness in the Progressive City

Chris Herring is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of California Los Angeles, and current Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University's Inequality in America Initiative. His research focuses on poverty, housing, and homelessness in US cities. Chris's work has been published in the American Sociological Review, Social Problems, City and Community, City, and the ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences.

Danielle Kushner, The Center for Policing Equity

Dr. Danielle Kushner currently works as Community Engagement Research Associate at the Center for Policing Equity (CPE). Her work background includes experience in community organizing, international development and higher education. Prior to coming to CPE, Kushner was an Assistant Professor of Political Science at St. Mary's College of Maryland and Loyola University Maryland, where she taught and conducted research on the politics of crime and policing. Kushner also has years of experience advocating for police reform in her hometown of Baltimore City. In 2017, the Mayor appointed Danielle to the Community Oversight Task Force (COTF.) The COTF was charged with studying Baltimore's system of civilian oversight of the police and recommending ways to strengthen it and police-community relations. After the task force was dissolved, Kushner and two of her task force colleagues founded Reconcile Baltimore, a nonprofit organization, to formally continue the work of trust-building between the police and community. Her interest in and work on reconciliation in Baltimore’s communities has also been informed by her many years working in South Africa, where some of the most comprehensive work on reconciliation has been done.
 

Mary Ellen Stitt, University at Albany

The Clandestine Hand of the State: Relational Dynamics of Police Collusion

Mary Ellen Stitt is sociologist who studies the state's governance of mental illness and substance use. She is an Assistant Professor in the School of Criminal Justice in the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs & Policy and a Faculty Affiliate in the Department of Sociology at the University at Albany, SUNY.

Cody Telep, Arizona State University

Increasing Fairness and Effectiveness? Findings from a Multi-City Randomized Trial of Procedural Justice Training at Crime Hot Spots

Cody Telep is an Associate Professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Arizona State University. As of July, he will be Associate Director of the School. His PhD is in Criminology, Law and Society from George Mason University, where he worked in the Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy. His research interests include the impact of police practices on crime and disorder, assessing the relationship between police activities and perceptions of legitimacy, understanding how to advance the use of evidence-based policies and practices in policing and criminal justice, and using experimental methodologies in evaluation research.