Johnny Nhan is associate dean of graduate studies and professor of criminology and criminal justice at TCU. His 2019 textbook, Issues and Controversies in Policing Today, has been adopted in classes across the country.

What motivated you to pursue an academic career versus other paths in criminal justice?

After working some part-time jobs post-graduation, I applied to the PhD program in Criminology, Law & Society at UC Irvine, which I was fortunately accepted into as one of only seven incoming students that year.

I have always had the goal of becoming a professor somewhere. I loved the university environment. There are some teaching universities where it’s very lecture-heavy, where you teach a lot of classes, and there were very research-heavy universities; I got job offers at both. But I ended up choosing TCU because of the balance, which they call the teacher-scholar model. It allowed me to focus on both teaching and research, which I enjoy.

As a first-generation college and PhD student, I had no mentors or role models. I really enjoy seeing students really live out their full potential in college and being at TCU.

Which topics does your research cover?

When I first started here at TCU [in 2008], and in my dissertation, I was really looking a lot at cybercrime and technology and crime. I still do that today, but different aspects of policing also interest me.

I’ve recently looked at real-time crime centers, where police use network technology to track people and solve crime, and I look at different privacy issues with police. But I also do some stuff on prisoner reentry [the transition of offenders back into the community].

I’m working on the second edition of my book called Issues and Controversies in Policing Today. I’ve also been co-researching and evaluating camera technology for a company called Flock Safety. And on top of that, Dr. Bowen [graduate director and associate professor of criminology and criminal justice] and I just received a grant from the city of Fort Worth to evaluate the crime prevention program.

What’s the most meaningful outcome you’ve seen from your research?

The most meaningful outcome is when it’s referenced by other researchers. And seeing my textbook, for example, being adopted in other classes and hearing the feedback from students and other universities.

Some of the research, I think, has been impactful for the city. The research on violent crime I got to present at City Council a few times, and it’s just formed a nice dialogue between TCU and the city. My most impactful research was crowdsourcing criminology during the Boston bombings. That has been referenced a lot, and it was one of the first research projects that really looked at the role of the public in participating in the policing process.

You launched TCU’s master’s in criminal justice in 2014. What motivated the decision to make it a distance learning program?

We realized that our students were nontraditional students, meaning they were first responders, they were police officers, they were people working in criminal justice. It was just not convenient for them to come to campus to take classes.

When I worked with the Koehler Center [which supports instruction and engagement at TCU], I knew that we could develop a robust program that had a lot of content that wasn’t just a video recording of a professor giving a lecture.

Together with Fort Worth Police Chief Neil Noakes and professor Kendra Bowen, you created the Leadership, Executive and Administrative Development certificate program, also known as LEAD, for law enforcement supervisors. What inspired the program?

After returning from an out-of-state police executive training conference, Chief Noakes brought up the idea of establishing a similar leadership program.

The program is unique in that we tackle the toughest issues, including some of the most current issues in policing, through facilitated dialogues with experts. For example, the course may bring in a medical doctor to lead a conversation about officer stress and the sources of stress. At the end of the day, students will develop final projects that they can take back to their own department and implement there.

You also partnered with Chief Noakes to launch Operation Progress, a charitable organization to mentor and provide college scholarships to underserved local youth. How did TCU help?

Chancellor Boschini was extremely generous. He immediately offered two full-rides under the Community Scholars program — two full scholarships per year for Operation Progress students. Now we’ve been able to build a network of Operation Progress partner schools throughout the country.

What do you see as the biggest challenges in criminal justice today?

The mental health issue that affects all aspects of criminal justice. Probably the biggest problem is the breakdown of families and resources available to families. You can’t use police to solve those things and what we’ve been doing to solve everything, like mental health issues, is we’ve been using police, we’ve been using the jails, but it just makes the problem worse.

Another big issue is the shortage of police officers.

Where do you see the most career opportunities emerging in criminal justice?

I see a lot of jobs open up for skilled college students in the world of policing — not just police officers but federal agencies, people who work in reentry, nonprofit organizations that provide services to children and people in need.

What advice do you give to students interested in pursuing a career in criminal justice?

I would say pursue it and pursue education at the same time — don’t just finish your bachelor’s degree but get a master’s degree. Don’t stop learning, keep pushing yourself forward, and take risks to be in positions of leadership.

Pretty soon they’ll realize they are going to be in a very unique space where they are highly educated, highly qualified and in an era when people are quitting and not wanting to work much. If students apply themselves with goals in mind while maximizing education, they could really open up a lot of opportunities.