On December 14, 2015 from 2:00 to 3:30 PM (Eastern), the Smart Policing Initiative presented a webinar on "Criminology 102: Busted Myths in Criminology". This webinar was presented by Dr. Scott Decker, SPI Subject Matter Expert and Foundation Professor at the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Arizona State University. The past two decades of research have challenged many conventional assumptions about crime and criminal justice. These include such things as “nothing works”, that crime is going up, that simply providing more resources affects crime and that prevention doesn’t work. These assumptions are largely based on old or public misconceptions about criminal justice. Addressing these myths is important because progress can be made against crime by using current research and data about crime problems and criminal justice responses. The webinar identified ten of these “myths” and discussed the evidence that suggests that indeed these are myths. Most importantly, the webinar examined how the research evidence can lead to data-driven solutions.
- Sense and Nonsense about Crime, Drugs and Communities. Samuel Walker, Cengage Learning. 2014.
- The New Criminal Justice John Klofas, (Ed.). 2010. New York: Routledge
