The Speaker

Lorenzo M. Boyd, Ph.D., is a nationally recognized leader in police-community relations and an authority on urban policing, diversity issues in criminal justice, race and crime, and criminal justice systems. He currently serves as the Stewart Professor of Criminal Justice and Community Policing, and the former Vice President of Diversity & Inclusion and former Director of the Center for Advanced Policing for the Henry C. Lee College of Criminal Justice and Forensic Sciences, University of New Haven.

He served for 14 years as a Sheriff’s Deputy in the Suffolk County (Mass.) Sheriff’s Department which shaped his approach to teaching, research, and training of police commanders and officers.

Dr. Boyd is currently working to build the center into a national resource for professional development, with a central focus on building levels of empathy and cultural competence among police leaders and officers. He’s reaching out to police chiefs, and command staff around the country to determine their training needs and is developing interactive professional development that include real-life scenarios and role playing.

A former president of the Academy of Criminal Justice Science and a life member of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE), Dr. Boyd has appeared on local, regional, and national media outlets to discuss policing in the aftermath of high-profile cases, including shootings in Baton Rouge, Dallas, and Ferguson, Missouri. In 2019, he led a study addressing issues of racism, bias, and police and community relations at Yale University after a white graduate student called the police to report a black graduate student who was asleep in a residence hall common room.

The Workshop

Trauma Informed Policing as a Tool for Community Policing : Thursday, September 29, 2022 10:30A

Police/Community relations decreased during the protests of 2020. There was a greater distrust of police after several high-profile cases gained national attention. But the distrust and trauma started long before these cases. Part of the pathway forward is understanding the trauma that community members are facing, then engaging in meaningful dialog to help move past those issues. This training is rooted in the contact hypothesis - the idea that controlled, interpersonal contact between members of opposing groups can reduce tensions between them. Trauma Informed Policing is both diagnostic and prescriptive. The diagnostic piece is in helping officers recognize community trauma, the prescriptive part is acknowledging the pain and beginning the process of healing the relationship. By better understanding community trauma, officers can employ more effective community policing strategies.