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Biography

Scott Wolfe is a Professor, Associate Director, and Ph.D. Program Director at the School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University. Additionally, he is the Director of the Michigan Justice Statistics Center. Scott received his PhD in criminology and criminal justice from Arizona State University. His research focuses on policing, organizational justice, and criminological theory and has been funded by organizations such as the National Science Foundation, National Institute of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, and Bureau of Justice Assistance. Scott’s recent research focuses on evaluating police officer training programs, police officer employee relations, and the predictors of officer-related outcomes such as the use of procedural justice and force. His research also examines issues such as the predictors of police officer seatbelt use, officers’ experience with negative publicity and the Ferguson Effect, and the legal socialization process.

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Current Research

Scott Wolfe (PI), “Police Training Evaluation in Southeast Michigan.” Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan. Amount: $125,000.

This project focuses on the evaluation of several police officer training programs being delivered to departments in Southeast Michigan. The training programs focus on developing officers’ skills at effectively communicating with youth in behavioral health crises and people with physical and cognitive-based disabilities, respectively.

Scott Wolfe (PI), Jeff Rojek (Co-PI), “FY 2023 Michigan State Justice Statistics Program.” Bureau of Justice Statistics. Amount: $224,997.

This project has three primary components. First, our team is continuing our partnership with MSP to better understand the nature of disparities in their traffic stops using spatial analytic techniques. Second, we are delivering a training series to MSP analysts that centers on how to conduct racial/ethnic disparity analyses with traffic stop data. Third, we are working with MSP and other law enforcement partners to evaluate the effectiveness of several officer training programs. For example, we are working with MSP to evaluate their recruit- and recertification-based driver training programs.

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Areas of Expertise

• Police and policing
• Organizational justice
• Racial disparities in policing outcomes
• Police training evaluation

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Selected Publications

Knode, J.,* Wolfe, S.E., & Carter, T.* (2024). Pulling back the veil of darkness: A proposed roadmap to disentangle racial disparities in traffic stops, a research note. Criminology.

Note: Winner of the 2024 American Society of Criminology Division of Policing Outstanding Student Article Award.

Carter, T.,* Wolfe, S.E., Knode, J.,* & Henry, G.* (2024). Attempting to reduce traffic stop racial disparities: An experimental evaluation of an internal dashboard intervention. Criminology & Public Policy.

Knode, J.,* Carter, T.,* & Wolfe, S.E. (2024). Driving while broke: The role of class signals in police discretion. Justice Quarterly.

Nix, J., Huff, J., Wolfe, S.E., Pyrooz, D., & Mourtgos, S.* (2024). When police pull back: Neighborhood-level effects of de-policing on violent and property crime, a research note. Criminology.

Wolfe, S.E., McLean, K., Rojek, J., Alpert, G.P., & Smith, M.R. (2022). Advancing a theory of police officer training motivation and receptivity. Justice Quarterly.

McLean, K., Wolfe, S.E., Rojek, J., Alpert, G.P., & Smith, M.R. (2020). A randomized-controlled trial of social interaction police training. Criminology & Public Policy.

Wolfe, S.E. & Lawson, S.G.* (2020). The organizational justice effect among criminal justice employees: A meta-analysis. Criminology.

Wolfe, S.E., Rojek, J., McLean, K., & Alpert, G.P. (2020). Advancing social interaction training to reduce the likelihood of officer use of force events. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.

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