In late September 2013, Cynthia Lum and Chris Koper, faculty members in the Department of Criminology, Law and Society, headlined a presentation at the Missouri Attorney General’s Urban Crime Summit, a four-day event featuring some of the nation’s top police professionals, policy makers, academic scholars, and criminology and criminal justice experts.
Both St. Louis and Kansas City are plagued by high rates of violent crime. According to Joan Gummels, Director of Policy and Communication for the Missouri Attorney General’s Office, Missouri ranked ninth in murders per capita in the country in 2011, and among cities, St. Louis consistently ranks in the top four and Kansas City in the top ten.The office of Chris Koster, Missouri Attorney General, organized the summit to discuss policing and crime reduction strategies.
Lum and Koper found themselves in esteemed company. Prominent presenters at the summit included Raymond Kelly, Commissioner, NYPD; William Bratton, Former Commissioner, NYPD and Former Police Chief, LAPD; and Harold Pollack, Co-Director, University of Chicago Crime Lab.
During the summit, which was open to the public, each expert described their research to a five-member panel:
- Chris Koster, Missouri Attorney General
- Francis Slay, Mayor of St. Louis
- Sly James, Mayor of Kansas City
- Sam Dotson, Chief of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department
- Darryl Forté, Chief of the Kansas City Police Department
These five officials committed four days of their schedules to focus on the issue of crime and violence.
“By sponsoring the Urban Crime Summit, Attorney General Koster wanted Missourians to learn that these rates of violence are not normal, and not acceptable – and then focus on solutions,” Gummels said.
Lum, director of the Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy (CEBCP), discussed the foundations of evidence-based policing, and how police departments can and do use academic research in the field. Koper, senior fellow in CEBCP, talked about specific methods of combatting crime, such as hot-spot policing (a preventative approach for small areas with high crime concentrations), a focus on high risk groups, and problem-oriented policing (in depth analysis of crime trends and tailored solutions).
“We advocated for police to think in a different way than perhaps they have in the past, which can be more reactive or individual or on a case-by-case approach,” Lum said. “Secondly, we wanted to provide them with very specific information on tactics that seem to be very promising in terms of reducing crime and violent crime hot spots among high risk offenders.”
Lum and Koper also described the Evidence-Based Policing Matrix, a tool developed by Lum, Koper, and Cody Telep, faculty member in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Arizona State University and a Mason alumnus (PhD ’13, criminology, law and society). The matrix is a research-to-practice tool that visually organizes studies of police activity to measure the effectiveness of different strategies. It is designed to help police apply academic research into their everyday procedures.
The audience, consisting of local and state officials, police officers, social workers, faculty, staff and students from the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and community members, took notice.
“Dr. Lum and Dr. Koper provided the summit with extremely valuable insights on effective policing strategies, which will be imperative in developing recommendations for reducing crime in Kansas City and St. Louis,” Attorney General Koster said. “The panel found the dialogue with Dr. Lum and Dr. Koper following their presentations to be among the most valuable discussions of the entire week. The clarity of their analysis on the summit’s opening day provided panel members with a strong foundation for other topics throughout the week. ”
Several attendees noted that the two criminologists are vividly engaged in the policing and policy communities, though such engagement is not the norm for those in academic settings.
“I was thrilled when I saw their names included on the agenda,” said Ken Novak, chair of the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. “Their research is highly relevant to the conversations for these two major metropolitan areas. Their work on the Evidence-Based Policing Matrix is a way to make the academic and scientific research and best practices available and actionable for criminal justice practitioners.”
A full report from the summit is expected later in the fall, along with a list of recommendations for the Missouri Attorney General’s Office. Lum and Koper are expected to figure heavily into these follow-up plans.
October 31, 2013
