Welcome to Episode 117 of The Criminology Academy podcast, where we are criminally academic. In this episode, we are speaking with Professor Benjamin Comer and his work around school shootings.

Benjamin Comer is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Texas Christian University. His research focuses on gun violence, school gun violence, and mass gun violence. His additional areas of research focus on data accuracy and comparability, as well as spatial criminology. Benjamin received his PhD in Criminology and Criminal Justice from Sam Houston State University.

In this episode, we are speaking with Professor Zach Hamilton about his work on risk-needs assessments.

Zachary Hamilton is a Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice and Associate Director of the Nebraska Center for Justice Research at the University of Nebraska Omaha. His research centers on innovation in risk and needs assessment development. Specifically, he works directly with adult corrections and juvenile justice agencies to create assessments that are optimized for their agency’s needs. Zachary earned his PhD in Criminal Justice in 2010 from Rutgers University.

In this episode we speak with David Kirk about the gig economy (Uber; AirBnb) and how it relates to crime.

David Kirk is a professor in the Department of Criminology and Research Associate of the Population Studies Center at the University of Pennsylvania. He received his PhD in sociology from the University of Chicago and previously served on the faculties at the University of Oxford, the University of Texas at Austin, and the University of Maryland. His research agenda is primarily organized around three interrelated themes: the causes and consequences of cynicism and distrust of the police and the law, solutions to criminal recidivism, and the causes and consequences of gun violence.