The DEC Executive Board is comprised of the Division’s current officers, immediate past Chair, and three Executive Counselors. The Board forms policies for the Division, provides advice and decides the budget for the Division, and approve committee chairs. The Division Chair will convene the Executive Board.
Chair: Dr. Jerry Ratcliffe
Jerry focuses on evidence-based policing and crime analysis, and he works with police agencies around the world on leadership, crime reduction and criminal intelligence strategy. After an ice-climbing accident ended a decade-long career with London’s Metropolitan Police, he earned a first class honors degree and a PhD from the University of Nottingham. He has published over 100 research articles and nine books, including most recently Reducing Crime: A Companion for Police Leaders. Ratcliffe has been a research adviser to the FBI and the Philadelphia Police Commissioner, an instructor for the ATF intelligence academy, and he is a member of the FBI Law Enforcement Education and Training Council. He is a professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at Temple University in Philadelphia, USA.
Vice-Chair: Dr. Rylan Simpson
Rylan Simpson, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the School of Criminology at Simon Fraser University. He received his Ph.D. in Criminology, Law and Society from the University of California, Irvine. He is the recipient of numerous awards for his policing scholarship and engagement with policing officials. He regularly conducts experiments, including in the laboratory and in the field, and teaches courses regarding the use of experimental methods in criminological research. He is also a member of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police’s Research Advisory Committee and a mentor for the Canadian Society of Evidence-Based Policing’s Virtual Scholar Program. As an applied scholar, Rylan has participated in more than 1,400 hours of police ride-alongs across the world.
Secretary/Treasurer: Dr. Jessie Huff
Dr. Huff’s research revolves around evaluating police programs and policies in order to improve police effectiveness and the equitable administration of justice. She is an NIJ LEADS Academic committed to partnering with agencies to better understand what works in policing and how to achieve fair and equitable policing outcomes for civilians of diverse backgrounds. She has collaborated on several research projects with police agencies across the U.S., including randomized-controlled trials of body-worn cameras, violence reduction strategies, and intelligence approaches to gun crime. Her research has been funded through sources including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Department of Homeland Security, and the Bureau of Justice Assistance.
Executive Counselor: Dr. Hunter Boehme
Dr. Boehme is an Assistant Professor in Criminology and Criminal Justice in South Carolina. Hunter received his PhD in 2020 from the University of South Carolina, and his research interests are policy change and policing, police use of force, geospatial crime analysis, and extremism and hate crimes.
Executive Counselor: Dr. Matthew Bland
Matt Bland is an Associate Professor in Evidence Based Policing at the Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge. He is also a Visiting Senior Fellow in Policing at the University of Suffolk, a scholar at the Jerry Lee Institute for Experimental Criminology and a member of the Executive Board of the American Society of Criminology’s Division of Policing. Bland is an experienced analyst, researcher and writer with an extensive background in data analytics, quantitative and qualitative research methods and teaching. His areas of expertise include domestic abuse, prolific offenders, place-based analysis of crime, intelligence, performance management, artificial intelligence and statistics. He has experience in teaching and supervising police officers and staff, government personnel and private sector security officers, within the UK and abroad.
Executive Counselor: Dr. Roni Factor
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Roni Factor is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Criminology, Faculty of Law, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His research brings an interdisciplinary perspective to the question of how the macro-level social context influences individuals’ antisocial and criminal behaviors. In studying these issues, he employs cutting-edge quantitative methods, using a variety of different types of data and research designs. His research so far has focused on three main areas. In the first, he studies how the macro social context and people’s position in society affects high-risk and criminal behavior, with a particular focus on traffic violations and road traffic crashes. In the second, he explores community–police relations and the legitimacy of law-enforcement institutions. In the third, he asks whether there is racial or ethnic bias in the work of law-enforcement institutions and develop new tools to measure it.
Immediate Past Chair: Dr. Barak Ariel
Dr. Barak Ariel, is a Reader in Experimental Criminology at University of Cambridge and a Fellow of the Jerry Lee Centre of Experimental Criminology. He is also an Associate Professor in Criminology at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel. Dr Ariel is involved in evaluation research projects with a large number of criminal justice agencies around the world. He is an advisor to several governments and police departments, including a Cross-Whitehall Trial Advice Panel, Uruguay Police, several forces in England and Wales, IBM and others. He is the recipient of the Academy of Experimental Criminology Young Experimental Scholar Award, European Society of Criminology Young Criminologist Award and other recognitions. Dr Ariel publishes in leading journals in criminology on various topics, including body worn videos (BWCs), hotspot policing, deterrence and technology in policing.