\u201cIt was unbelievable stuff,\u201d Mazeika says. \u201cAnd it was happening in my backyard.\u201d<\/p>\n
An idea began to percolate.<\/p>\n
Mazeika realized an opportunity existed to support newspapers stretched thin by diminishing resources and, at the same time, provide students with hands-on research experience with real-world stakes. He invited one of the lead reporters, Andrew Ford, to visit campus and talk about the misconduct series with the students.<\/p>\n
At the end of the visit, Mazeika made his pitch: Why not work together?<\/p>\n
It was the beginning of an unusual partnership that has so far yielded two collaborations between the newspaper and the college, including a groundbreaking investigation that appeared last year on the front page of both USA Today<\/em> and the Asbury Park Press<\/em> that revealed the dangers of police car chases in New Jersey.<\/p>\n Mazeika helped Ford sift through and analyze more than 4 million arrest records, where they found that over the last decade, at least 55 people were killed and more than 2,500 were injured in car chases, nearly half of those being bystanders and police officers.<\/p>\n Three criminology students \u2014 Nicholas Scales \u201920, Rich Kyle \u201922, and Hailey Stack \u201922 \u2014 gathered and summarized police car chase policies from other states. Mazeika held weekly meetings to field questions and oversee their progress, but let the students take charge of the research. The trio divided up the 49 other states and, for several months in the fall of 2019, chased down answers, calling and sending hundreds of emails to police departments, records clerks, and offices of state attorneys general across the country.<\/p>\n They discovered that New Jersey\u2019s police pursuit guidelines are the most detailed in the country, and allowed the police broad discretion to chase vehicles that they thought posed an immediate safety threat. But the reporting from Ford and his TCNJ partners showed that many of the pursuits were not instigated by serious crimes but instead prompted by minor offenses. For example, in the last decade, according to their research, at least 23 fatal chases began with minor traffic infractions.<\/p>\n As a result of these findings, New Jersey\u2019s attorney general, Gurbir Grewal, recently restricted the ability of the police to instigate car chases. To start a pursuit, officers must now suspect someone of having committed a first-degree or violent second-degree crime; any threat to public safety must be related to the person\u2019s actions before police tried to stop them rather than stemming solely from any speeding or evasive driving in response to the pursuit itself.<\/p>\n Using his research skills to help make New Jersey safer for both civilians and police officers resonated on a personal level for Scales; his father, a state trooper, died in the line of duty when Scales was 6 years old.<\/p>\n \u201cWe worked so hard, and it made a difference,\u201d Scales says. \u201cWe had an impact on policing policy in New Jersey. That is monumental.\u201d<\/p>\n Ford, who first worked with Mazeika and some of his students on a project about fitness standards for police recruits, says the collaboration accelerated his reporting.<\/p>\n \u201cIf I didn\u2019t have Dave and his students to call upon, either it would take me much longer to try to do that work myself, or it would be something that we might not be able to afford,\u201d Ford says. \u201cI\u2019ve heard of newspapers working with journalism students but I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve heard of any working with criminology students. That, I do think, is unique and pretty cool.\u201d<\/p>\n For Mazieka, the partnership provides a chance to pursue the applied research he loves in a venue that can reach a wide audience.<\/p>\n \u201cI think we\u2019re all in this to make a difference,\u201d he says. \u201cAt least I am.\u201d<\/p>\n Mazeika\u2019s interest in criminology <\/span>emerged decades ago, in front of the television. \u201cTwo words,\u201d he says, identifying his inspiration, \u201cThe X-Files<\/em>.\u201d He attended Rowan University with dreams of becoming an FBI agent until poor eyesight thwarted his ambitions.<\/p>\n \u201cI realized I probably wasn\u2019t going to get a federal law enforcement job on the street with a badge and a gun like Mulder,\u201d he says, referring to one of The X-Files<\/em> protagonists. \u201cI had to reevaluate my career plans.\u201d<\/p>\n By his sophomore year, Mazeika discovered a passion for research. \u201cI became much more academically inclined and bookish,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019ll never forget, I spent my 21st birthday in the library. I liked learning things.\u201d<\/p>\n After graduating, he earned a PhD in criminology and criminal justice at the University of Maryland, with an eye toward teaching. But as he studied academic theory, he was simultaneously drawn to practical experience.<\/p>\n \u201cTheories don\u2019t matter if you can\u2019t develop legal, ethical, moral, and efficacious policies,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n While he pursued his doctorate, Mazeika held a full-time job at the Statistical Analysis Center at the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council in Washington, D.C., an independent agency with a mission of improving public safety across the district. It was here that he dove deeply into a wide range of subjects, from teen and truancy court diversion programs to victim-offender mediation and electronic monitoring.<\/p>\n Mazeika\u2019s desire to teach didn\u2019t diminish, but his broad interest in criminal justice issues took him along a nontraditional path; instead of solely publishing academic papers, he was also writing government reports, evaluating programs, and securing grants to help agencies upgrade record management systems.<\/p>\n \u201cHistorically, being a good academic is about having laser focus on one thing and drilling down as much as possible and getting into as many minutiae as you can,\u201d he says. \u201cBut there\u2019s something to be said about being well rounded and well informed about the justice system because you don\u2019t know when your knowledge of one area of the system may come in handy on your current research.\u201d<\/p>\n After arriving at TCNJ in 2014, <\/span>Mazeika began inviting interested students to join his research projects, from helping conduct intake interviews with the Trenton Violence Reduction Strategy initiative to studying how technology that picks up the sound of gunshots can help map unreported gun crime.<\/p>\n Bruce Stout, professor emeritus and past chair of TCNJ\u2019s criminology department, praises the way Mazeika\u2019s research is frequently centered in the public sphere. Stout successfully spearheaded efforts to redefine the department\u2019s professional standards to recognize impactful public research alongside more traditional academic publishing. Mazeika\u2019s work, including the recent collaboration with the Asbury Park Press<\/em>, is exactly what Stout had in mind when he pushed for the change.<\/p>\n \u201cDave\u2019s the embodiment, in my view, of what a real-world criminologist should do \u2014 his work is focused on improving the justice system, and therefore the quality of life for everyone,\u201d Stout says.<\/p>\n After the police pursuit story appeared in the newspaper, Stout met Mazeika for lunch; instead of simply describing his own role in the project, Mazeika also talked about guiding his students through the research process.<\/p>\n \u201cI thought, \u2018That is exactly what we should be doing: getting students involved,\u2019\u201d Stout says. \u201cWhat makes TCNJ unique is there is a focus on this kind of thing. We talk all the time about the teacher-scholar role. This is how it should live. You get students involved. And Dave always does that.\u201d<\/p>\n Before graduating last year, Scales made a point to thank Mazeika. Participating in the police pursuit research, along with Mazeika\u2019s crime mapping class, helped Scales discover a passion for criminology that would lead him to a job as a mission support specialist with the New Jersey State Police, which he started in September 2020.<\/p>\n And making headlines elevated the students\u2019 experience even more. When the story hit the paper, Scales bought a copy to share with his mother. Stack\u2019s grandmother marveled at seeing her granddaughter\u2019s name in print. For Stack, the feeling of seeing her work as part of something with such wide impact was \u201chumbling.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s just surreal,\u201d she says. \u201cBeing here at TCNJ, I think sometimes people assume because it\u2019s a smaller school you\u2019re not going to get those same big opportunities \u2014 but, if anything, I\u2019ve gotten way more than I ever anticipated.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Photos: Peter Murphy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Criminology professor David Mazeika and his students make headlines, and change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":307,"featured_media":11750,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/307"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11749"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11749\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11762,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11749\/revisions\/11762"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Scales_2704_DSC7440_v3-scaled-e1621525441372-261x300.jpg\")