Michael D. White

Michael D. White, Ph.D. is a Professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Arizona State University, and is Associate Director of ASU’s Center for Violence Prevention and Community Safety. Dr. White is Co-Director of Training and Technical Assistance for the U.S. Department of Justice Body-Worn Camera Policy and Implementation Program. He received his Ph.D. in Criminal Justice from Temple University in 1999. Prior to entering academia, Dr. White worked as a deputy sheriff in Pennsylvania. Dr. White’s primary research interests involve the police, including use of force, technology, and misconduct. He has published more than 70 articles in peer-reviewed journals and his recent work has been published in Criminology, Justice Quarterly, Criminology and Public Policy, and Criminal Justice and Behavior. He is co-author of Cops, Cameras, and Crisis: The potential and the perils of police body-worn cameras (2020); Stop and Frisk: The Use and Abuse of a Controversial Policing Tactic (2016); and Jammed Up: Bad Cops, Police Misconduct, and the New York City Police Department (2013; all three published by New York University Press). Dr. White has commented extensively in the media on police issues, especially body-worn cameras, including in Scientific American, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, TIME Magazine, CNN, NPR, and MSNBC. He also testified about body-worn cameras before the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing. Dr. White has served as the PI or Co-PI on grants exceeding $11.1 million, including grants from the National Institute of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance, Laura and John Arnold Foundation, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In addition to his current work as Co-Director of Training and Technical Assistance for the U.S. Department of Justice’s Body-Worn Camera program, he currently serves as the research partner for two projects with the Tempe Police Department: The Tempe Strategies for Policing Innovation (funded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance), which centers on the development and evaluation of a police de-escalation training program; and the Tempe First Responder Opioid Recovery Project (funded by SAMHSA), which involves training and outfitting all patrol officers with naloxone. He is also currently the co-PI on two National Institute of Justice grants, one evaluating the deployment of body-worn cameras in a local jail and the other employing social network and spatial analysis to understand and address fentanyl distribution networks in Long Beach, CA.