Ph.D. City University of New York Graduate Center
M.Phil. City University of New York Graduate Center
M.A. John Jay College of Criminal Justice
M.S. Tiffin University
John DeCarlo is a nationally recognized expert in community policing and on perceptions of race in policing. He previously was a member of the Branford Police force for 34 years, including six years as chief
Dr. DeCarlo’s current research focuses on police contagion shooting, looking closely at what causes violence to escalate. He is the co-principal investigator on a $1.5 million National Science Foundation grant to study racial profiling.
The co-author of three books and numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals, Dr. DeCarlo’s book, Police Leaders in the New Community Problem-Solving Era, examines community policing in Boston, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, and Newark, studying how police leaders successfully implemented community-policing strategies.
His research focuses on police management, police unions, policing methods, and eye witness identification. His published work includes "Perceptual Differences between Police and Citizens Encountering Weapons Focus Effect" in Police Quarterly and "Does Video Recording Alter the Behavior of Police During Interrogation? A Mock Crime-and-Investigation Study" in Law and Human Behavior.
His wide-ranging research interests also include environmental criminology. Exploring the effect of weather and environmental variables on crime, Dr. DeCarlo discovered that many long-held myths on weather and lunar cycles and their impact on crime appear to be untrue.
As police chief in Branford, Dr. DeCarlo was credited with making the department a model of community policing. He works closely with the New Haven Police Department, looking at gang affiliation and differential association, and at ways to thwart gun violence through the collaborative efforts of police, parole, probation, and the larger community.
The founder of the Center for Advanced Policing at the University of New Haven and co-founder of NexGen Solutions, Inc., Dr. DeCarlo was previously the coordinator of the Police Studies program at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He received his Ph.D. in criminal justice and a master’s degree from the City University of New York Graduate Center. He also earned an M.A. from John Jay College of Criminal Justice and an M.S. from Tiffin University. He currently serves as chair of the police section of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences.
Often quoted in the media about police issues, Dr. DeCarlo has been featured on CBS News, NPR’s All Things Considered, Al Jazeera Television, and in the New Haven Register. A widely sought-after speaker, he participated in Yale University’s Seminar on Racial Disparity in Criminal Justice and the Vera Institute’s conference on Police Change and Legitimacy.