Crime prevention, juvenile delinquency, and correctional treatment programs, meta-analysis, quantitative research methods
David B. Wilson, PhD, is a University Professor in the Criminology, Law and Society Department at George Mason University. His research interests focus broadly on issues related to changing the criminal behavior of juvenile and adult offenders. More specifically, his research examines the effectiveness of offender rehabilitation and crime prevention efforts. He is also interested in advancing meta-analysis and program evaluation methods. His research has focused on a range of topics, including the effectiveness of juvenile delinquency interventions, juvenile curfews, school-based prevention programs, correctional boot camps, court-mandated batterer intervention programs, and drug courts; the effects of sugar on children's behavior; and the effects of alcohol on violent behavior. He co-authored a book on the methods of meta-analysis with Mark Lipsey that is widely used. He was co-editor of the Journal of Experimental Criminology, and a past consulting editor for Psychological Bulletin. Currently, he serves as the methods editor for the Crime and Justice Group of the Campbell Collaboration and an associate editor for Research Synthesis Methods. He was awarded the Marcia Guttentag Award for Early Promise as an Evaluator by the American Evaluation Association in 1999 and the Frederick Mosteller Award for Distinctive Contributions to Systematic Reviewing. In 2021 he was appointed as a Fellow of the American Society of Criminology.
Wilson, D. B., Olaghere, A., & Kimbrell, C. S. (2019). Implementing juvenile drug treatment courts: A meta-aggregation of process evaluations. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 0022427819826630.
Wilson, D. B., Brennan, I., & Olaghere, A. (2018). Police-initiated diversion for youth to prevent future delinquent behavior. Campbell Systematic Reviews, 14.
Johnson, D., Wilson, D. B., Maguire, E. R., & Lowrey-Kinberg, B. V. (2017). Race and perceptions of police: Experimental results on the impact of procedural (in) justice. Justice Quarterly, 34(7), 1184-1212.
Mitchell, O., Wilson, D.B., Eggers, A., & MacKenzie, D. L. (2012). Assessing the effectiveness of drug courts on recidivism: A meta-analytic review of traditional and non-traditional drug courts. Journal of Criminal Justice, 40(1), 60-71.
Kochel, Tammy, Wilson, David B., & Mastrofski, Stephen. (2011) Effect of Suspect Race on Officers' Arrest Decisions. Criminology, 49(2), 473-512.
Wilson, David B. (2010). Meta-analytic methods for criminology and criminal justice. In A. Piquero & D. Weisburd (eds.), Handbook of Quantitative Criminology (pp. 181-208). New York: Springer.
Wilson, D. B., McClure, D., & Weisburd, D. (2010). Does Forensic DNA Help to Solve Crime? The Benefit of Sophisticated Answers to Naive Questions. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 26(4), 458-469.
Wilson, David B. (2009). Missing a critical piece of the pie: Simple document search strategies inadequate for systematic reviews. Journal of Experimental Criminology, 5(4), 429-440.
CRIM 315 Research Methods and Analysis in Criminology
CRIM 780 Research Methods
CRIM 782 Statistics I
CRIM 795 Meta-analysis (special topics course)
Catherine S. Kimbrell, The Impact of Poverty on the Pretrial Process (2019)
David McClure, Understanding Public Tolerance for Justice System Error (2015)
Kirsten Hutzell, The Impact of Interpersonal Bullying and Cyberbullying on School Avoidance (2014)
Anne S. Douds, An Experimental Design Study of Judicial Decision-Making Regarding Compulsory Vaccination Policies in Juvenile Detention Facilities (2012)