Professional Services for Criminal Justice Agencies, Non-Profit Organizations, and Educators
The Criminal Justice Research Collective provides research, assessment, and evaluation assistance to national, state, local and international criminal justice agencies, non-profit organizations, and Educators. We offer expertise in leadership, consultation, training, technical assistance, as well as other services that can be tailored to fit the needs of our clients.
Where Are You Located?
We have offices in Pittsburgh, PA. and New York City, NY. Our client reach extends as far west as Chicago, Illinois and south to New Orleans, LA.
Human Behavior Experts
Let our team of research consultants help you harvest insights from individuals and groups to inform strategic decision making and empower problem solving solutions for your organization. We can put together a staff for you that includes project managers, evaluation researchers, and research analysts, all of whom are highly credentialed subject matter experts.
Our Team
We are a multi-disciplinary team, which means that we are able to draw from the core strengths of corrections industry and academic research practitioners, who represent a range of disciplinary expertise, including psychology, sociology, criminology, and anthropology. Team members are specialists who are experts in their fields, as demonstrated through credentials and publications. They have hands-on experience advising a wide range of criminal justice agencies, non-profit organizations, and education institutions, both in the U.S. and abroad. Let us leverage our wealth of experience as we partner with you to solve important problems in your organization.
Colleen Eren, Ph.D., Lead Consultant, Principal. Dr. Eren is an expert in the National Criminal Justice Association’s Crime and Justice Alliance and a tenured professor at William Paterson University. A criminologist, she has written books in top presses and peer-reviewed articles on crime policy, white collar crime, and criminal justice in higher education.
Sandra L. Trappen, Ph.D. Lead Consultant, Principal
Dr. Trappen is a Lead Consultant. She is an expert in corrections and designs assessment and evaluation protocols. A degree holder in sociology, she is currently a professor of Criminal Justice and Criminology studies at Penn State University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Dr. Trappen’s publications are focused on student learning pedagogy and trauma-informed approaches to criminal justice.
Cristina Figueroa, Lead Consulting Advisor, Principal
Cristina Figueroa is a Lead Consulting Advisor. She is presently an Assistant Deputy Chief United States Probation Officer in Western Pennsylvania with over 20-years experience as a subject matter expert and advocate for evidence-based practice in community corrections.
Professional Services
Scoping Project & Needs Assessment
To get started, we can help you “scope” you organization and perform a preliminary needs assessment. This will give you an opportunity to work with our team on a small tightly defined project that we design to deliver immediate impact.
Program Assessment & Evaluation
We can help you evaluate your government, non-profit, or company program for process, performance, and impact. Whether you want assistance in developing a strategy, or if you simply want help to determine how to improve processes and practices, we can help you. We’ll look at your current levels of performance and our team will help you pinpoint what will best help your program or organization to exceed expectations. We create the evaluation designs, develop outcome measures, and collect information for you using data-collection instruments
Our research and evaluation consultants can design projects to address the questions that matter most to your organization’s efficiency and effectiveness. Working together, we will help you determine the extent to which an evaluation of your project, program, or organization is feasible or necessary.
We have extensive experience designing and implementing both in-process as well outcome evaluations. To keep things moving in the right direction, we can design an evaluation protocol and, if you desire, teach your in-house experts how do administer this, that way you have a formal process in place to assess outcomes.
Whether you’re focused on a systematic investigation of processes and program implementation, or on the quantitative modeling of outcomes and socioeconomic impacts, we will ensure your evaluation design meets your expectations.
Strategic Planning & Policy Review
Strategic Planning is the cornerstone of any organization. Let us help you define your goals and future direction, as you implement best practices models and map out the necessary steps to take your organization to the next level. Developing a strategic plan is not only a multi-step process, it is an iterative process, where you incorporate constant feedback and learning into the original strategic vision, this way the vision is fulfilled, as demonstrated by effective problem solving and results.
Training
We provide provide training assistance to corrections administrators and line staff who work with individuals in criminal justice settings.
Presentence Investigations
We have retired former probation officers on staff who can write reports after conducting an investigation to become familiar with case details, including the government’s version of the offense/case. Probation officers will meet with justice involved individuals in their home, the probation office, over the phone, or in the corrections facility if the person is in custody. Prior to these meetings, the probation officer will have documented insight into the case from the prosecutor and the investigators. The purpose of defendant meetings is to collect information from the person being investigated, provided they are willing to offer this.
Case Mitigation Reports
Our team includes experts on sentencing guidelines and so we can be of service to defense attorneys to help them prepare the Presentence Investigation Report. Here again, our staff will meet with justice involved individuals in whatever setting may be appropriate (home, probation office, over the phone, or in the corrections facility).
Risk Assessment
Local, state and federal criminal justice agencies are increasingly implementing data-driven decision making in order to assist with the supervision and management of justice-involved persons. We can provide risk assessment support across the different stages of the legal process to assess the risk of re-offending (or noncompliance with justice requirements) and identify areas for intervention. Whether you require assistance with pretrial, probation and parole, or ongoing case management, we have staff experts who can provide support. We know from experience that once risks and needs are properly identified, criminal justice agencies can operate more effectively.
Quantitative Analytics
We have over 50 analysts and methodologist who are ready to assist you with quantitative evaluation analytics. Our evaluation team will reveal the underlying relationships and structure of your quantitative data and qualitative content, which we will turn into reports to inform decision-making regarding your project, program, or organization. Our team has expertise that can help you with developing new data. Likewise, we can evaluate extant data to help inform public program and policy evaluation and analysis.
Qualitative Content Analysis
For those seeking qualitative content analysis of interviews and focus groups, we are experts at revealing the underlying structure of qualitative content for process evaluation. We have a team of coders, who will utilize the latest data processing programs to process transcripts from your program participant and stakeholder interviews. Let us help you to identify your organization’s strengths and weaknesses so that you can keep doing what’s working, and change what’s not.
Trauma Informed Community Corrections
We can help you to review or develop policies to address issues and problems that concern groups that include women, girls, men, boys, and gender-diverse people. In addition, we have experts on staff who specialize in developing trauma-informed polices and procedures for not only justice-involved persons, but also programs to support corrections staff.
Academic Program Assessment & Evaluation
Our practice leaders can provide you with support for academic assessment processes focused toward improving learning outcomes, promoting academic excellence, and helping to advance institutional effectiveness. Academic expertise enables us to work collaboratively with campus-based education leaders to foster sustainable assessment practices to enhance student learning.
Grants & Proposals
We can provide consulting for grant proposals and active grants. In addition, we can offer grant writing support from inception to completion.
Non-Profit Consulting & Community-based Services
We can offer an array of consulting services to organizations that are committed to assisting justice involved people, including re-entry services.
Evidence-based Practice & Offender Reintervention
Offenders vary widely both in the future risk they pose to public safety and in regards to the specific treatment they may require. We can help you implement evidence-based screening and assessment protocols, which can match each offender to an appropriate type of intervention. Screening in this case involves the use of one or more tools to identify possible risk and needs early in the justice system process, such as at the booking or initial arraignment stage. Assessment refers to a longer evaluation process that should occur before an offender is matched to a particular treatment type. Both screening and assessment tools should be used together in order to evaluate “criminogenic” risk and need factors, as these factors have been shown by research to be statistically correlated with recidivism
Offender Risk-Needs Assessment
Risk and needs assessments are objective evaluations that go beyond mere “professional judgement” to help guide decision making at various points across the criminal justice system. These can be be administered at any time during a person’s contact with the criminal justice system—during the pretrial period, while on probation, after admission to a correctional facility, prior to release, and during post-release supervision. The goal is to estimate a person’s likelihood of reoffending and determine what individual criminogenic needs must be addressed to reduce that likelihood. When used properly, these assessments put people in groups of different risk levels, usually categorized as being at low, medium, or high risk of reoffending. Let us help you implement a validated process to administer these programs.
Contact Us!
You may use the contact button located on the menu bar (left) to get in touch with us or email us directly:
Dr. Sandra L. Trappen, slt62@psu.edu
Dr. Colleen Eren, erenc@wpunj.edu
Cristina Figueroa, cfigueroa72@gmail.com
Key Words: Criminal Justice Research, Corrections Consulting & Non-Profit Advising Services, Case Mitigation Reports, Presentence Investigations, Community Release Programs, Risk Assessment, Trauma Informed Community Corrections