Law and Order

I have had pleasure and privilege of working with some fine law enforcement officers from the Bedford Police Department, Lawrence County Sheriff’s Department, Mitchell Police Department, Oolitic Police Department and the Indiana State Police; overall, they have thoroughly impressed me with their professionalism.

With a Master of Arts in Criminal Justice and graduate certificate a criminology, I’m intimately interested in improving our ability to reduce crime and enhance public safety.

While politicians like to talk about being tough on crime, they often fail to address the reality that our jails and prisons are at capacity and that housing criminals is expensive to the taxpayer.

One Possible Solution:

Expand the Pre-Trial Diversion Program.

To reduce the burden on the criminal justice system, I would like to give greater opportunity for those facing drug-related charges regarding possession and petty dealing to pursue recovery. For simple possession and or petty dealing, it’s in society’s interest—both in terms of cost and public safety– to help these individuals recover. I will support enhanced penalties for true drug dealers and traffickers. By giving prosecutors and courts a greater tool set on how to deal with simple possession and petty dealing, there is opportunity to encourage those facing charges to share actionable intelligence with law enforcement. This would allow law enforcement to concentrate more on and target the source of these drugs without burdening the system on the end-user—the addict–who is very much a victim as well.

Any diversion program I support will require criminal charges be filed if substance use endangers a child, lends itself to violence, or resulted in an OWI.

I will also seek legislation that would prevent police or prosecutors from choosing not to report or charge a confidential informant in relation to an offense in which child neglect/abuse occurred.

I will also advocate for police training to include a social work component and evidence based approaches in interview/interrogation methodology. 

A strong social-work component given at the Indiana Police Academy will help police better serve those with mental illness and to help connect disadvantaged citizens to resources as both such groups contribute to a large share of police responses.

Additionally, I would like to see the Indiana Police Academy do away with teaching the REID method of interview and interrogation. There is now a substantial body of research to show that many of the so-called indicators of deception that are taught by this method are unreliable and lack scientific validity. This can result in an innocent person being treated harshly and potentially create barriers to law enforcement pursuing other suspects or hypotheses regarding the crime. As a graduate student that studied social psychology and criminal justice, I spent a considerable amount of time reviewing the literature on detecting deception and investigative interviewing: REID is out-dated. The FBI knows it and the CIA knows it. There are better methods that are both more reliable–evidence based–and more humane. Many of these methods have been adopted by the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group but they are just as applicable to the patrol officer and county detective.