Faculty members in the school are involved in important and policy-relevant research on issues such as police-community relations, use of technology by the police, mass incarceration and its consequences, racial profiling by criminal justice agencies, the response of the criminal justice system to crimes such as domestic violence and sexual assault, neighborhoods and crime, and gangs and crime. The results of these projects are incorporated into the classes we teach; they also inform policy and practice at the state, national and international levels. 

For example, during the fall 2017 semester, Foundation Professor and School Director Dr. Cassia Spohn completed an analysis of death penalty sanctioning in the State of Arizona. Her preliminary findings may be found in this report.

In response to the May 25, 2020 homicide of George Floyd and the resulting protests, rioting, and deaths of both citizens and police, the CCJ Faculty published 10 key measures to transform policing and the criminal justice system. The companion piece to this statement is a listing of related faculty publications over the last five years.

Areas of expertise

• Childhood Conduct Disorders
• Children and the Law
• Community and Institutional Corrections
• Community Policing and Problem-Oriented Policing
• Constitutional Criminal Procedure
• Crime Analysis
• Criminal Justice Policy
• Criminology in Developing Nations
• Effects of Race, Ethnicity, and Gender on Sentencing Decisions
• Fraud Victimization
• Gangs
• Gender & Crime
• Immigration, Crime, and Social Justice
• The Insanity and Diminished Capacity Defenses
• Juvenile Court Processes
• Legal Psychology and Legal Socialization
• Neighborhoods, Crime, and Disorder
• Organizational Leadership
• Police Use of Force
• Police and Technology
• Prisoner Reentry and Reintegration
• Psychopathy and Criminal Offending
• Sentencing and Plea Bargaining 
• Sex, Sexuality, Law, and Justice
• Social Control
• Sociology of Punishment
• SuperMax Prisons
• Victimization
• Violence and Violent Crime