Atlanta, November 14, 2018 – Rob Worden and Sarah McLean, authors of Mirage of Police Reform, participated in an “author-meets-critics” session at this year’s American Society of Criminology meeting today. (See the news post on the book’s publication and contents here.) Chuck Katz (Arizona State University), Tammy Rinehart Kochel (Southern Illinois University), and Lorraine Mazerolle (University of Queensland) were the “critics” who offered comments on the book. David Bayley, distinguished professor emeritus of the University at Albany, chaired the session. Shown in the post-session photograph are (left to right) Kochel, Mazerolle, Bayley, McLean, and Worden.
The audience included SUNY-Albany doctoral alumni Heidi Bonner, Tanya Meisenholder, and Chris Harris, shown here with Bayley, McLean, and Worden.
In a post prepared for this occasion and appearing in the blog of the book’s publisher, the University of California Press, Worden and McLean commented on current reform efforts underway in Chicago, applying the perspective on police reform explained in Mirage of Police Reform. In Police Reform, Chicago Style, they point out that procedural justice is featured in the consent decree, even though Chicago police have been down that reform path previously, and they explain why no one should be optimistic that it will lead to a better place this time.