‘Policing, Race and the Rule of Law’

The Gordon Lecture Series welcomes Professor, criminologist and Denison alumnus Lawrence W. Sherman ’70 presenting “Counting what Counts in Justice: Policing, Race and the Rule of Law.”

The Wolfson Professor of Criminology at Cambridge University and Director of the Cambridge Institute of Criminology, Professor Sherman also is the founding director of the Jerry Lee Centre for Experimental Criminology and serves as chair of the Cambridge Police Executive Programme. Considered to be father of “evidence based policing,” Sherman’s use of randomized controlled experiments to study deterrence and crime prevention has led him to examine such wide-ranging issues as domestic violence, police crackdowns and saturation patrol, gun violence and crime, crack houses, and reintegrative shaming. He has collaborated with more than 30 police and justice agencies around the world.

In the past 12 months, police departments and academies in Vietnam, Uruguay, Trinidad & Tobago, Western Australia and Queensland, as well as a number of UK police agencies, have asked Sherman to teach to their students. President Barack Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing invited Sherman to address them and has cited his testimony (which can be found on C-Span) repeatedly in its report.

Sherman’s proposal for creating a “Cambridge Crime Harm Index” to replace the traditional crime count (that treats all crimes with equal weight) has generated substantial discussion among governmental departments, at the Office of National Statistics, and at police agencies across the UK, and from Uruguay to Australia.

Included among the numerous awards Sherman has received for his research are the Edwin Sutherland Award for outstanding contributions to the field of criminology from American Society of Criminology; the Joan McCord Award for distinguished experimental contributions to criminology and criminal justice from the American Society of Criminology; the Bruce Smith Sr. Award for outstanding contributions to criminal justice from the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences; the Distinguished Scholarship Award in Crime, Law and Deviance from the American Sociological Association; the Beccaria Medal in Gold from the Society of Criminology of German-speaking Nations; the Robert Boruch Award from the International Campbell Collaboration; and the Benjamin Franklin Medal and Honorary Life Fellowship of the Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. He also was presented the Alumni Citation from Deniso

Sherman is the founding president of the Academy of Experimental Criminology, and he is a fellow of the American Society of Criminology. Having earned his bachelor’s degree from Denison, a master’s from the University of Chicago, a diploma in criminology from Cambridge University and a Ph.D. from Yale, he holds honorary doctorates from Stockholm University and Denison University. Sherman delivered the Commencement Address at Denison in 2014.