Jacqueline Helfgott is a Professor and Director of the Crime & Justice Research Center in the Department of Criminal Justice, Criminology & Forensics at Seattle University. She has a PhD and MA in Administration of Justice from the Pennsylvania State University and a BA in Psychology and Society & Justice from the University of Washington. Her research specializations include criminal behavior, psychopathy, copycat crime, corrections/reentry, public safety, police-community relations, crisis intervention in law enforcement, and community/restorative justice. She has served as principal investigator on applied criminal justice research in policing, courts, corrections, and victim services. She is author of Copycat Crime: How Media, Technology, and Digital Culture Inspire Criminal Behavior and Violence (Bloomsbury, 2023), No Remorse: Psychopathy and Criminal Justice (Praeger/ABC-CLIO, 2019), Criminal Behavior: Theories, Typologies, and Criminal Justice (Sage, 2008), Editor of Criminal Psychology, Volumes 1-4 (Praeger/ABC-CLIO, 2013), coauthor of Offender Reentry: Beyond Crime and Punishment (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2013) and Women Leading Justice: Experiences and Insights (Routledge, 2019). Her work has been published in peer-reviewed journals including the Journal of Criminal Justice, Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology,Aggression and Violent Behavior, Criminal Justice & Behavior, International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, Journal of Forensic Psychology Practice, Federal Probation, International Review of Victimology, Journal of Community Corrections, Corrections: Policy and Practice, Criminal Justice Policy Review, and the Journal of Qualitative Criminology. She has served as principal investigator on research funded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance, Arnold Foundation, Community Oriented Police Services (COPS), and the Open Society Institute including the Seattle Women’s Reentry Evaluation, the Research Network on Misdemeanor Justice, Longitudinal Evaluation of the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission Guardian Law Enforcement Training, the Seattle Police Department’s Officer/Mental Health Practitioner Partnership Pilot Program, and development, implementation, and evaluation of "Citizens, Victims, and Offenders Restoring Justice" (CVORJ) a prison-based encounter program at the Washington State Reformatory. She was 2nd Place winner of the 2023 National Institute of Justice Innovations in Measuring Community Perceptions Challenge. She teaches graduate and undergraduate courses at Seattle University including The Psychopath, Criminal Justice Theory, Typologies of Crime & Criminal Behavior, Criminology, Trafficking, and Murder, Movies & Copycat Crime. Sheis principal investigator on the Seattle Police Department’s Micro-Community Policing Plans/Seattle Public Safety Survey, the “Before the Badge” Community-Police Dialogues, Longitudinal Evaluation of the Seattle Police “Before the Badge” Training Program, Denver Neighborhood Safety Plans/Denver Public Safety Survey, Seattle Community Assisted Response and Engagement (CARE) Evaluation, and the Rainier Beach A Beautiful Safe Place for Youth Evaluation. She serves on the Seattle Mayor’s Advisory Panel on Sexual Assault and System Reform, the Seattle Police Department’s Crisis Intervention Committee, and regularly contributes to public discourse on crime and justice through op-eds and media interviews and. She is a member of the American Society of Criminology, the Western Society of Criminology, the Society for the Scientific Study of Psychopathy and the Association for Threat Assessment Professionals.
