Dr. Ilana Friedman is an Assistant Professor at the J. David Rosenberg College of Law at the University of Kentucky. Her research sits at the intersection of law, organizations, and criminal justice, with a focus on how investigations into police use of force actually function in practice and why accountability so often fails to materialize.

Professor Fiona Brookman is a Professor of Criminology at the Centre for Criminology at the University of South Wales. She is one of the leading researchers on homicide investigation in the UK, with a body of work that spans offender narratives, detective decision-making, and the use of forensic science and technology in criminal investigations. She has conducted extensive ethnographic fieldwork inside live homicide investigations, giving her rare and extraordinary access to how these cases actually unfold

Dr. Faith Deckard is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of California – Los Angeles. Currently, she is examining how commercial bail entangles families in a complicated economic and social system of obligation, debt, and punishment. Faith received her PhD from the University of Texas at Austin in 2024. As a researcher, her interest lies in understanding how marginalized groups experience and respond to social control institutions.

Dr. Tara Richards is the David Scott Diamond Alumni Professor of Public Affairs and Community Service and Co-Director of the Victimology and Victim Studies Research Lab in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Nebraska Omaha. Her research and teaching focuses on prevention, intervention, and system responses to sexual assault, intimate partner violence, and child abuse and neglect.

William J. Schultz is an assistant professor of criminology at MacEwan University in the department of Sociology. He received his MA and PhD in Sociology from the University of Alberta. Will’s research interests center on the life experiences of incarcerated people, the influence of fentanyl and other drugs on prison environments, gangs and radical ideological groups in prison, and how correctional officer cultures impact the daily operations of prisons.

This month, some of Jenn's graduate students take over the podcast and question Jenn and Jose about various topics!

Dr. Jillian Peterson is a Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota, and Executive Director of The Violence Prevention Project, a nonpartisan research center committed to using data-driven solutions to reduce violence in our communities.

In episode 126, we’re exploring the career and research of one of the leading scholars on gender, inequality, and crime, Professor Karen Heimer.

Karen Heimer is Professor of Sociology & Criminology, Collegiate Fellow in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, and Distinguished Research Fellow of the Public Policy Center at the University of Iowa. She also holds a courtesy appointment in the Boyd College of Law. Heimer researches and teaches in the areas of gender and violence, juvenile delinquency, criminal punishment, and causes of crime and violence. She became a Fellow of the American Society of Criminology in 2015 and served as President of the American Society of Criminology in 2018. She is a recipient of the 2018 Iowa Regents Award for Faculty Excellence and the 2019 UI’s Hancher-Finkbine Faculty Medallion.