Tilburg University’s Department of Culture Studies invites you to the upcoming seminar Criminal Justice and Mental Health: Contributions from an Applied Anthropology of Police. Dr. Jennie Simpson will talk about her former experiences as a police anthropologist in Washington D.C. and her current work as Special Assistant to the Administrator for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration (SAMHSA is an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services), from where she provides subject matter expertise on criminal justice.  In applying anthropological methods and knowledge in practical efforts to improve police responses to individuals with mental illnesses, Jennie provides a good example of how anthropologists can contribute to a public-facing and publicly engaged anthropology of police.

After Jennie’s talk, Lola Valles will give a response. Lola is currently the head of Research and International Cooperation within the School of Police of the Institute for Public Security of Catalonia (Barcelona). Taking applied scholarship to heart, Lola has extensive professional and scholarly experience in the fields of criminal justice and police. In her work she focuses on ethnic profiling, public order and conflict management, police training, gender issues and police identity construction. Lola has a long international trajectory working in European research funded projects and being involved in international networks for police research and training. She is doing her doctoral research on police culture and is currently a visiting fellow at our department. 

We hope to see you all on October 4th.

With kind regards,

Paul Mutsaers and Jos Swanenberg