Chicago at a Crossroads: The Future of Community Policing

Roseanna Ander serves as the Founding Executive Director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab (since 2008) and the University of Chicago Education Lab (since 2011), which work to design, test, and scale data-driven programs and practices that improve the public sector’s approach to public safety and education. Since their inception, Ander has led the Crime Lab’s and Education Lab’s efforts on violence prevention, criminal justice reform, and improved educational outcomes in Chicago, New York, and around the nation. Ander also helped launch the University of Chicago Urban Labs network, with the creation of three independently run labs focused on poverty, health, and the environment. Prior to joining the University of Chicago, Ander worked at the Joyce Foundation, was a Soros Justice Fellow with the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office and worked for the Harvard Injury Control Center and the Harvard Project on Schooling and Children. Ander holds a M.S. from the Harvard School of Public Health.

Mecole Jordan-McBride is the Advocacy Director for the Chicago Neighborhood Policing Initiative. The Chicago Neighborhood Policing Initiative is a policing philosophy that is grounded in the principle that public safety is the responsibility of everyone who works and lives in the neighborhood; that we are safer when we communicate effectively and work together. Working together, the police understand the needs of the community, they learn more effective ways to respond to community needs, and they understand root causes to recurring public safety concerns by talking directly with residents. 

Mecole is the former Executive Director of the United Congress of Community and Religious Organizations in Chicago. She began her non-profit career in 2006, volunteering for a campaign to reduce the criminalization of individuals with drug addiction. She quickly became entrenched in the work, supervising reentry and violence prevention programs that provided comprehensive wraparound support for the formerly incarcerated and at-risk youth. She later began local and statewide organizing, conducting organizing and racial equity training for community organizations and parents engaged in education reform. She has gained significant experience working with and building broad-based coalitions for local and statewide reform efforts, particularly around Police Reform and Racial Equity.

Deputy Director Mike Milstein has proudly served the City of Chicago and Chicago Police Department for over six years with a focus on promoting positive interactions between police and communities. This has included lifting community voices in the effort to create and revise policies, trainings, and practices centered around fair and impartial policing. 

Since 2020, Deputy Director Milstein has overseen the Chicago Police Department's Office of Community Policing, where he manages all positive, non-enforcement engagements between police and communities. He also leads the Chicago Police Department's Civil Rights Unit, which includes its Hate Crime Team and Community Liaison Team, a unit Deputy Director Milstein significantly expanded in 2021 to address the needs of historically marginalized and underserved communities. Before joining the Chicago Police Department, Deputy Director Milstein served under Chicago Mayor's Rahm Emanuel and Lori Lightfoot, advising on public safety policies and operations. 

Deputy Director Milstein holds a Bachelors degree in Political Science from the University of Illinois at Chicago, a Masters degree in Public Policy from the University of Chicago, and is currently attending the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Social Impact Strategy’s 2023 executive program.

Andrew V. Papachristos is currently Professor of Sociology and Faculty Fellow at the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University. He is also the founder and Faculty Director of CORNERS: The Center for Neighborhood Engaged Research & Science. Papachristos' research aims to understand how the connected nature of cities—how their citizens, neighborhoods, and institutions are tied to one another—affect what we feel, think, and do. His main research applies network science to the study of gun violence, police misconduct, illegal gun markets, Al Capone, street gangs, and urban neighborhoods. He is also currently completing a book that examines the role street gangs have played in building The Great American City. Papachristos is a Chicago native and earned his PhD from the University of Chicago.