Renée J. Mitchell served in the Sacramento Police Department for twenty-two years and was a Senior Research Scientist with RTI International and a Principal Researcher of Evidence Based Policing for Axon. She is the co-founder and past president of the American Society of Evidence-Based Policing (ASEBP). She holds a BS in Psychology, a MA in Counseling Psychology, a MBA, a JD, and a PhD in Criminology from the University of Cambridge.

She was a 2009/2010 Fulbright Police Research Fellow. You can view her TEDx talks, “Research Not Riots” and “Policing Needs to Change: Trust me I’m a Cop”, where she advocates for evidence-based policing. She has taught and lectured internationally on evidence-based policing. She designed and implemented a four-week Applied Criminology and Data management Course (AC/DC) for ASEBP. The course paired practitioners with researchers and culminated in 15 successful evidence-based research projects being conducted across the country. The course teaches police leaders and researchers how to conduct rigorous field research in their own agencies. For the last decade she has worked closely with police leaders to help them use their data operationally and execute their own research projects with several presenting their work at the International Association of Police Chiefs conference. Some of the agencies she has worked with are Portland Police Bureau, Oregon, Grand Prairie Police Department, Texas, Burlington Police Department, North Carolina, Greensboro Police Department, North Carolina, and Austin Police Department, Texas.

Her research areas included evidence-based crime prevention, place-based criminology, 911 calls for service, alternative police responses, and police training. She has published her work in the Journal of Experimental Criminology, Justice Quarterly, and the Cambridge Journal of Evidence-Based Policing. Her books include Evidence Based Policing: An introduction, Implementing Evidence-Based Research: A How to Guide for Police Organizations, and Twenty-one Mental Models That Can Change Policing: A Framework for Using Data and Research for Overcoming Cognitive Bias. Her Implementing Evidence-Based Research book recently won the American Society of Criminology, Division of Policing, Outstanding Book Award for 2022.

The Susette M. Talarico Lecture, presented by the Criminal Justice Studies Program and the Criminal Justice Society, is hosted annually in memory of Dr. Talarico, a long-time director of the Criminal Justice Studies Program. With support from the Susette M. Talarico Fund, the Criminal Justice Society, the Departments of Political Science and Sociology, this lecture series has brought practitioners and scholars to campus to speak on a wide variety of current issues in criminal justice.

The content and opinions expressed during events hosted by the School of Public & International events do not necessarily reflect the views of nor are they endorsed by the University of Georgia or the University System of Georgia.