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The Jeff-alytics Podcast

AH Datalytics

Can data uncover the real story of crime and justice in America?

Jeff Asher—nationally recognized crime data analyst, co-founder of AH Datalytics, co-creator of the Real Time Crime Index, and author of the Jeff-alytics Substack—sits down with policymakers, academics, journalists, and everyday people to reveal what the numbers actually show. Each episode challenges the myths we believe, exposes the gap between headlines and reality, and asks: what happens when we finally see crime clearly?

New episodes drop every other week! Visit ahdatalytics.com to learn more.

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Wednesday · 41 min
How The Federal Data Landscape Is Changing With Denice Ross
Every crime rate, every per capita statistic, every trend line in American public safety depends on something most people have never thought about: the data infrastructure underneath it. You only notice it when it starts to break down. Today’s guest, Denice Ross, has seen this breakdown firsthand and it has informed her career ever since. Denice has served as the Chief Data Scientist of the United States under the Biden Administration, built the Police Data Initiative – an open data effort for police departments to voluntarily publish data – under the Obama Administration, and now runs the Data Policy Institute at the Federation of American Scientists. In this conversation, we get into what data has actually changed under the current administration. We also talk about the Census as the denominator for everything, declining survey response rates, and how Denice got a group of police chiefs to open up their records over cupcakes at the White House. Denice Ross is the Director of the new Data Policy Institute at the Federation of American Scientists, and the former Chief Data Scientist of the United States. In the Obama Administration, she co-led the Police Data Initiative which catalyzed law enforcement agencies to be more accountable by opening data about things like police use of force and citizen complaints. Denice worked in New Orleans (where we first met) for many years, before and after Katrina, first for a nonprofit data intermediary and then serving in the Landrieu administration, where she established the city's open data initiative. For more of Denice's work, check out http://dataindex.us/ and http://essentialdata.us/
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August 19 · 34 min
Stitching Together America’s Criminal Justice Data with Mike Mueller-Smith
The criminal justice system is big, it is complicated, and it is expensive. But how do we know what parts of it, if any, are working? Enter Mike Mueller-Smith. A decade ago, Mike started building the Criminal Justice Administrative Records System (CJARS) a data infrastructure project that links criminal justice records across 40 states to employment outcomes, health data, and more. It is the kind of tool that makes you wonder why it didn’t exist sooner. In this episode, we get into why criminal justice data is so fragmented, what it takes to stitch it together, and what researchers keep finding once they can actually see the full picture. We also talk about Mike’s Justice Outcome Explorer, one of my favorite criminal justice data sites out there – a public dashboard built to help average Joes make sense of complex and sensitive criminal justice data. Mike Mueller-Smith is the Co-Founder and Director of the Criminal Justice Administrative Records System (CJARS for short), a data infrastructure platform that is modernizing American research and statistical reporting capacity. He also is an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Michigan and does research on the multi-faceted determinants of crime in the U.S. and the broad-ranging consequences of our criminal justice policy.
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August 12 · 44 min
Guns, Data, and the Law with Thomas Chittum
Every time a gun is recovered at a crime scene in America, a quiet process begins. The gun is traced backward through manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers to find out where it came from and how it got to the scene. Most people have no idea this system exists, let alone what it entails. Tom Chittum has spent 25 years inside it. He's a former associate deputy director of the ATF and has spent his career at the intersection of federal law enforcement, firearms law, and the technology used to connect guns to crimes. In this episode, we get into how the legal landscape around gun ownership is shifting in ways most people haven't followed. We talk about how firearms tracing actually works, why the data is so hard to get and even harder to interpret, and what the future of the law surrounding firearms might look like. Tom Chittum was a career federal agent and retired from ATF as Associate Deputy Director. After leaving government service, he was Senior Vice President of Forensic Services at SoundThinking, the maker of the gunshot detection system, ShotSpotter. He is an adjunct law professor at UNLV’s Boyd School of Law, where he teaches ‘Firearms Law and the Second Amendment.’ He also works as a private attorney, representing federal law enforcement officers and advising on matters of firearms and explosives law.
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August 5 · 47 min
Using Social Networks To Reduce Gun Violence With Andrew Papachristos
My guest today is Andrew Papachristos, one of the smartest people (though he is a Bears fan) thinking through how to use data to reduce gun violence. Andy has spent his career trying to read networks more systematically. He’s a professor at Northwestern University who studies how social ties and relationships shape who becomes a victim and who doesn’t and how that knowledge can be put to use before the next shooting, not just after. In this episode, we get into what network science actually is, how cities are using it to reach people at the highest risk, and why the same principles hold whether you're looking at Boston, New Haven, Newark, or Chicago. We also talk about what it actually looks like when violence intervention workers use this research well and what the current historic crime decline might be obscuring. Andrew Papachristos is the John G. Searle Professor of Sociology at Northwestern University, where he directs the Institute for Policy Research and CORNERS—the Center for Neighborhood Engaged Research & Science. His (insert adjective :P ) research uses network science and multi-method approaches to understand gun violence, gun markets, street gangs, and policing. He is one of the country's leading experts on how network dynamics shape gun violence and public safety.
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July 29 · 37 min
Crime Is Falling. Can Public Perception Catch Up? with Insha Rahman
My guest today is Insha Rahman, the president of the Vera Institute of Justice, the oldest and largest justice reform organization in the country. Insha has spent the past ten years building out everything from bail reform research to a 501c4 focused squarely on the politics of public safety and brings a fascinating perspective to the conversation around making perceptions of crime and safety more responsive to what the data says is actually happening. In this episode, we get into why the data behind reforms like bail reform rarely matches the political story told about them, what cities like Camden, NJ got right during their first homicide-free summer in fifty years, and why Insha thinks the gap between crime perception and crime reality might finally be starting to close. Insha Rahman is the president and director of the Vera Institute of Justice, the oldest and largest criminal justice reform organization in the country. Insha is also the president and director of Vera Action, an independent 501(c)(4) organization. Insha is the first woman, immigrant, and Muslim to lead both organizations. Insha previously served as Vera’s vice president for Advocacy and Partnerships and the director of Vera Action since 2020. Insha got her start in this work as a public defender in the Bronx.
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July 22 · 36 min
A Deep Dive into Why Crime is Falling with John Roman
Crime is falling fast in America , and, as the many different opinions on the podcast can attest, almost nobody can agree on why. My guest today has spent thirty years inside the question of America’s changing crime trends, first as a researcher at the Urban Institute, now as director of the Center on Public Safety at NORC. John Roman has a theory about what actually drove the violence spike of 2020, and an even more specific theory about what’s driving the decline now, one that has less to do with new policing tactics and a lot more to do with $300 billion in pandemic relief money that quietly rebuilt the social infrastructure we lost. In this episode, we talk about why the usual explanations for crime trends – more cops, more task forces, more local initiatives, don’t hold up against the data. We get into the role police legitimacy potentially played after George Floyd, why the decline has lasted so long, and what the future might look like. John K. Roman, Ph.D. is a senior fellow in the Economics, Justice, and Society Department and directs the Center for Public Safety and Justice at NORC at the University of Chicago. His research focuses on the economics of innovative crime and justice policies and programs, cost-benefit methodology, and systems reforms, including justice system interactions with substance abuse, public health, adolescent development, housing, workforce development, and education. Dr. Roman has conducted research on behalf of numerous state and local governments, foundations, and federal agencies.
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July 15 · 41 min
Using Technology to Improve Crime Analysis with Andy Wheeler
Today's guest is Andy Wheeler, a renowned criminologist, data scientist, and founder of Crime Decoder. Andy is a terrific voice for understanding the role of technology in analyzing and decreasing crime. We talk through Andy’s work with police departments, including crime trend monitoring, predictive analytics, focused deterrence, and the challenge of turning data into useful operational decisions. We also discuss the practical realities of artificial intelligence in criminal justice. Rather than focusing on the hype around AI replacing workers or transforming society overnight, Andy walks through how these tools are actually being used today: helping analysts write code, automate repetitive work, build dashboards, and make better use of messy public safety data. This is a great conversation about how the future of criminal justice analysis is already here. Andrew P. Wheeler, PhD and founder of CRIME De-Coder, collaborates with police departments across the United States on custom software and data analytics. His work focuses on predictive analytics, operations research, and policy analysis. See his firm and other resources at https://crimede-coder.com/. Andy also has a recent book, *Large Language Models for Mortals: A Practical Guide for Analysts with Python*, https://crimede-coder.com/blogposts/2026/LLMsForMortals
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July 8 · 41 min
Documenting the History of Crime & Punishment in America with Lynn Novick
My guest today has an incredible new documentary coming out this November called Crime and Punishment in America. It's a four-part, 8 hour review of the history of crime and incarceration dating back hundreds of years all the way to today (I was fortunate enough to get a preview). Lynn Novick (The Vietnam War, College Behind Bars, The Us and the Holocaust) is the writer and director of this terrific new documentary and she sat down with me to talk about everything from where the idea to cover such an expansive subject came from to what it's like working with such tremendous talent to make history come to life. This conversation is a great look into documenting the complexities of the American criminal justice system. Give it a listen and be sure to catch the new film when it comes out in a few months! Lynn Novick has been making landmark documentary films about American life and culture, history, politics, sports, art, architecture, literature, and music for more than 30 years. As director and producer, she has created more than 100 hours of acclaimed programming for PBS in collaboration with Ken Burns, including most recently their six-hour series, The U.S. and The Holocaust, (co-directed and produced by Sarah Botstein) which received the Alfred I. DuPont Columbia Award and the Television Academy Honors award. Novick’s films include The Vietnam War, Ernest Hemingway, Prohibition, Baseball, Jazz, Frank Lloyd Wright, and The War -- these landmark series have garnered 19 Emmy nominations. Novick herself has received DuPont, Emmy and Peabody Awards.
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July 1 · 34 min
Improving Policing Through Effective Reform With Christy Lopez
When crime rises, the instinct is usually to hire more officers, increase enforcement, and ask police departments to do even more. But after spending years investigating police departments and working on reform efforts across the country, my guest today has started asking a different question… What if we’re asking policing to do too much in the first place? Christy Lopez is a professor at Georgetown Law, former DOJ Civil Rights Division attorney, and one of the leading voices on policing reform and alternative public safety responses. In this episode, we talk about the limits of traditional police reform, why consent decrees have struggled to produce lasting change, and what it would look like to build a more diversified public safety ecosystem instead of relying almost entirely on law enforcement. Christy Lopez is a Professor at Georgetown Law, where she teaches courses on policing, criminal procedure, and civil rights, and is the Faculty Director of Georgetown's Center for Innovations in Community Safety. Prior to going to Georgetown in 2017, she was at the U.S. Department of Justice where she led the Division's group conducting pattern-or-practice investigations of law enforcement agencies.
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June 24 · 25 min
Behind Kansas City's Crime Drop With Mayor Quinton Lucas
One of the hardest things for any mayor to do is convince people that a problem can actually be solved. That may sound obvious, but when a city has struggled with violence for decades, cynicism starts to set in. Residents get frustrated. Headlines get harsher. And people assume that high levels of violence are simply part of life. My guest today rejects that idea. Quinton Lucas has served as mayor of Kansas City since 2019, a period that included both record levels of violence and, more recently, significant declines in homicides and shootings across the city . In this episode, we talk about how Kansas City approached violence reduction and how to communicate complex solutions to an intractable problem. Born and raised in Kansas City's inner city, Quinton Lucas serves as the 55th mayor of Kansas City, the youngest person elected to the role since 1855. Recognizing the importance of safety in our communities, Mayor Lucas serves as national chair for criminal justice efforts in the United States Conference of Mayors and as an advocate to reduce gun violence on America's streets as co-chair of Mayors Against Illegal Guns.
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June 17 · 39 min
The Public Health Approach To Reducing Shootings With Dr. Megan Ranney
“We should treat gun violence like a public health problem” is a phrase that is often used but rarely defined. My guest today is Dr. Megan Ranney, an emergency physician, injury prevention researcher, and the Dean of the Yale School of Public Health . She sees firearm injury as part of a much broader health issue, one that affects not just the person who was shot, but families, communities, health care providers, and the systems that are supposed to respond afterward. In this episode, we talk about what a public health approach to firearm injury actually means, why that framework is often misunderstood, and how public health researchers think about prevention differently from the way these conversations usually happen in politics or media. Dr. Megan Ranney is Dean of the Yale School of Public Health, a practicing emergency physician, and leading voice for innovative approaches to public health. For more than two decades, she has worked on the frontlines of emergency medicine, caring for patients impacted by firearm injuries, overdoses, and other preventable crises while advocating for solutions that bridge science, policy, and public trust. Her work focuses on rebuilding the connection between science and society and advancing evidence-based solutions that help people live longer, healthier lives.
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June 10 · 28 min
1,000 Levers For Reducing Gun Violence With Rob Wilcox
The national conversation around gun violence tends to revolve around what laws should be passed next. But a lot of the work of reducing violence doesn’t happen in Congress. It happens in cities, hospitals, community organizations, police departments, schools, and increasingly through coordination between all of them. My guest today is Rob Wilcox, the president and CEO of the Fund for a Safer Future and the former deputy director of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention. In this episode, we talk about what it was like helping build such a critical office from the ground up, how he tried to approach gun violence as more than just a legislative issue, what happens when the federal government starts thinking about violence reduction as an operational challenge instead of simply a political one, and what the future of gun violence prevention should look like. Rob Wilcox joined the Fund for a Safer Future in 2026 as its first President & CEO. He previously served as co-deputy director of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention in the Biden-Harris Administration, where he built a track record of turning evidence-informed strategies into real-world results. In that role, he led the implementation of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act and helped to shape over 50 executive actions. Prior to his White House service, Wilcox served in a senior role at Everytown for Gun Safety, where he worked on state and federal legislative efforts. His personal connection to the issue—his cousin Laura was killed in a workplace shooting in 2001—has driven his commitment to evidence-informed solutions for more than two decades. Fund for a Safer Future is a national network of over 30 funders pooling expertise and resources to help end gun violence. FSF is making grants to support policy, research, communications, and community-led efforts that save lives. The collaborative model brings more funders into the movement, lifts evidence-informed solutions, and backs the organizations working every day to keep communities safe.
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June 3 · 36 min
Building Towards Certainty Rather Than Severity With Greg Newburn
For decades, the response to rising crime has been fairly predictable: increase penalties, increase sentences, and hope it works. My guest today says that framework misses the point. Greg Newburn is the Director of Criminal Justice at the Niskanen Center, where his work focuses on reducing both crime and punishment at the same time through evidence-based policy . In this episode, we talk about why the criminal justice system may have been built around the wrong theory of deterrence, why certainty matters more than severity, and what it would look like to design a system focused less on increasing punishment and more on increasing the likelihood that crimes are actually solved. Greg Newburn is director of criminal justice at the Niskanen Center. His previous positions include state policy director and Florida director for FAMM and chair of the Florida-based 'Yes on 11' political committee. He is a graduate of the University of Florida and the University of Florida Levin College of Law.
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May 27 · 35 min
Why Accountability and Prevention Don't Have to Be in Conflict with Neera Tanden
Most debates about crime policy are framed as a choice. You’re either tough on crime or you’re not. You focus on enforcement or prevention. And the answers tend to sound simple. But once you move from talking about crime to actually trying to reduce it, things get more complicated, requiring nuanced solutions to complex problems. My guest today is Neera Tanden, president and CEO of the Center for American Progress and a longtime policy advisor who has worked across multiple administrations, including serving as domestic policy advisor in the Biden White House. In this episode, we talk about what crime policy looks like from inside that system, what we’ve learned from the last few years, and why approaches focused on accountability and prevention don’t have to be in conflict. Neera Tanden is the president and CEO of the Center for American Progress and the CEO of the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Before leading American Progress, Tanden was the Domestic Policy Advisor to President Joe Biden and director of the Domestic Policy Council, overseeing some of the administration’s signature achievements, including its efforts to lower the cost of prescription drugs and expand health insurance coverage. Previously, she was Senior Advisor and Staff Secretary in the White House. Tanden helped found American Progress, first working as senior vice president for domestic policy and later as chief operating officer. She ran the organization from 2011 to 2021, adding 10 policy teams and growing the budget by two-thirds. Previously, she has served as senior adviser for health reform at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, policy director for Hillary Clinton’s first presidential campaign, legislative director in then-Sen. Clinton’s (D-NY) office, and a senior policy adviser to the first lady in President Bill Clinton’s White House. Tanden received her Bachelor of Science from the University of California, Los Angeles, and her law degree from Yale Law School.
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May 20 · 17 min
The Past, Present, and Future of Gun Violence Reduction with Senator Chris Murphy
What actually drives change on an issue like gun violence? Is it policy? Culture? Policing? Or something harder to measure? To help answer that question I’m turning to Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut. Senator Murphy has been one of Washington’s leading voices on gun violence reduction, a passion that was shaped by his experience in the aftermath of Sandy Hook, where he spent time with families and saw firsthand the impact of that tragedy . In this episode, we talk about the recent decline in gun violence nationally, what role federal legislation and local interventions may have played, and how the broader movement around this issue has evolved over time. Chris Murphy, the junior United States senator for Connecticut, has dedicated his career to public service as an advocate for Connecticut families. Murphy has been a leading voice in the Senate, fighting for affordable health care, sensible gun laws, a forward-looking foreign policy, and a democracy and economy that serves working people. In 2022, he led the negotiations and helped pass the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the first federal anti-gun violence bill in 30 years. Prior to his election to the US Senate, Murphy served Connecticut’s Fifth Congressional District for three terms in the US House of Representatives. During his time in the House, he worked to foster job creation, advocate for affordable health care for all Americans, and improve homeless veterans’ access to housing. Before being elected to Congress, Murphy served for eight years in the Connecticut General Assembly. Senator Murphy grew up in Wethersfield, Connecticut, and attended Williams College in Massachusetts before earning a law degree from the University of Connecticut.
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May 13 · 45 min
Crime, Policy, and What Has Changed with Charles Fain Lehman
Answering the why of crime trends is frequently much harder than answering the what. The same data inevitably leads to very different explanations depending on how you interpret them and what you think is driving them, and there are rarely “right” answers. The numbers are fairly clear, the reasons behind that are not. To get at some of the reasons why crime has trended as it as I’m turning to Charles Fain Lehman, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute who focuses on crime, disorder, and what he describes as the public policy of antisocial behavior. In this episode, we talk through the differences in how we can explain what’s happening now, the role of policing and social factors, and how concepts like disorder shape how people experience safety in ways that don’t always show up in traditional metrics. Charles Fain Lehman is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and senior editor of City Journal. He focuses primarily on the public policy of antisocial behavior, including issues of crime, drugs, and public disorder. His work has appeared in outlets including the New York Times, Atlantic, Wall Street Journal, and National Review, and he has discussed policy issues before the Senate, House of Representatives, and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
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May 6 · 28 min
Investigating Crimes That Were Never Meant to be Reopened with Jill Collen Jefferson
Sometimes the hardest part about a crime isn't figuring out what happened — it's revisiting what's already been decided. Once a case is closed and a conclusion settles in, changing that can be just as difficult as investigating it was in the first place. My guest today is Jill Collin Jefferson, a civil and human rights attorney and the founder of JULIAN, an organization focused on investigating modern-day lynchings. JULIAN works with families and communities seeking answers in cases that have often gone unresolved or unquestioned. In this episode, we talk about how Jill approaches this work, how cases reach her in the first place, and what it takes to reexamine investigations that others have already moved on from. Jill walks us through the Willie Andrew Jones Jr. case in Mississippi, her arrest in Lexington while monitoring police, and the contentious relationships that come with exposing gaps in law enforcement investigations. Jill Collen Jefferson, JULIAN’s founder and Executive Director, is a civil and human rights attorney who grew up in the racism and de facto segregation of rural Mississippi and was trained by the leaders of the civil rights movement. She was mentored by the great civil rights leader Julian Bond, the organization’s namesake, who taught her civil rights history and strategy. She earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Virginia and her J.D. from Harvard Law School, where she is now faculty in its Trial Advocacy Workshop. She hails from a farm in southeastern Mississippi.
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April 29 · 46 min
How Criminal Justice Policy Gets Made In The White House With Rachel Harmon
What happens when the people shaping national crime policy don’t actually have the data they need? In this episode, I sit down with Rachel Harmon, law professor at the University of Virginia who previously served as a senior policy adviser for criminal justice for the White House Domestic Policy Council. Rachel provides a rare inside look at how crime policy really gets made, breaking down what it’s like working inside the White House -- where decisions move fast, data moves slow, and the pressure to respond to public fear doesn’t wait for evidence to catch up. She explains why even basic questions, like how big a problem carjacking actually is, can be nearly impossible to answer in real time, and how that gap shapes policy decisions. The conversation dives into the messy reality behind “data-driven policy,” including: Why crime data often arrives too late to guide decisions How political pressure competes with long-term strategy What it takes to actually implement policy after it’s announced And why the U.S. still lacks basic data on policing, charges, and outcomes Tune in for a fun, informative conversation on the messy business of making Federal criminal justice policy. Rachel Harmon is the Harrison Robertson Professor of Law and directs the Center for Criminal Justice at the University of Virginia School of Law. She is one of the nation’s leading scholars on policing and the law.
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April 22 · 37 min
Covering the FBI and DOJ in 2026 with Ken Dilanian
Ken Dilanian is a seasoned journalist covering the Justice Department and FBI, and in this episode he shares his insights on the evolving landscape of covering those agencies. We talk about crime data, the challenges of media coverage in 2026, the impact of political shifts on justice institutions, and a whole lot more in this jam-packed conversation. There are few journalists in the country with a better front row seat to the Justice Department in 2026 and Ken paints a fascinating picture of what it takes to cover it. Ken Dilanian is a veteran journalist covering the Justice Department, FBI, and national security for MSNBC (MSNOW), formerly NBC News. With over 30 years in journalism—including decades as a newspaper reporter—he specializes in intelligence, legal affairs, and federal law enforcement. He has reported extensively on crime data, public perception of crime, and the intersection of politics and justice. Follow Ken's work at: MSNBC / MSNOW – National security & justice coverage
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April 15 · 36 min
The Future of Criminal Justice in New Orleans with Mayor Helena Moreno
New Orleans has had one of the nation's highest murder rates every year for decades. Since 2023, however, violent crime has dropped sharply — and in this episode, I talk with Mayor Helena Moreno about crime and criminal justice in New Orleans. We discuss the city's difficulties, like a severe budget crisis and the ongoing challenge of abysmally low sexual assault clearance rates, as well as the city's successes. Mayor Moreno has had a front row seat to the city's crime rise and subsequent decline, and she details what she attributes the historic drop to — a combination of prevention investments like expanded summer jobs programs and violence intervention, targeted policing of the most violent offenders, and critical partnerships with state and federal law enforcement. Crime and criminal justice issues in New Orleans are often a microcosm of what is happening nationally, and this conversation puts a spotlight on how to attack problems happening both in New Orleans and throughout the country. Mayor Helena Moreno is a leader whose path to City Hall began not in politics, but as an Emmy-winning investigative reporter at WDSU. After years of exposing systemic failures behind the anchor desk, Moreno transitioned to public service in 2010, eventually serving as City Council President before her historic mayoral victory in 2025. Throughout her career, she has been a tireless advocate for accountability and equity—spearheading reforms ranging from cannabis decriminalization and renewable energy initiatives to expanded protections for sexual assault survivors. Born in Mexico and fueled by her early experiences as an immigrant, Mayor Moreno now brings that same spirit of urgency and responsiveness to the city’s highest office.
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