Dr Renée J. Mitchell

Senior Police Researcher, RTI International

Renée J. Mitchell served in the Sacramento Police Department for twenty-two years and previously a Senior Research Scientist with RTI International. She is now a Principal Research Scientist of Evidence Based Policing at Axon. 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 is the co-founder and executive committee member of the American Society of Evidence-Based Policing. She has taught and lectured internationally on evidence-based policing. Her research areas included policing, evidence-based crime prevention, place-based criminology, 911 calls for service, and implicit bias 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. Implementing Evidence-Based Research book recently won the American Society of Criminology, Division of Policing, Outstanding Book Award for 2022.