Session 2: Leading Community-Based Gang Reduction Strategies

R. Sean Baldwin is a senior research associate with the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR) Youth and Community Justice Initiatives group.  In this role, he works with the National Gang Center supporting law enforcement anti-gang training, as well as providing training and technical assistance to communities implementing the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention’s (OJJDP) Comprehensive Gang Model. 

Prior to working with IIR, Mr. Baldwin served 25 years as a law enforcement officer in Fort Pierce, Florida.  He worked as a patrol officer, a violent crimes detective, and a community policing officer and was promoted through the ranks, serving his last nine years as Chief of Police. Mr. Baldwin has extensive experience in law enforcement administration, leadership, policy development, crime-reduction strategy, and building community collaboration.  He has served as an instructor in use of force, firearms, and ethics.  As Chief of Police, he led a communitywide coalition to implement the OJJDP Comprehensive Gang Model in Fort Pierce, providing a long-term solution to persistent and serious gang violence. 

After his retirement, Mr. Baldwin served as an adjunct professor and as a consultant, providing training and consulting services to law enforcement agencies across the nation.  He also worked as a subject-matter expert in gang suppression strategies for the National Gang Center.

Mr. Baldwin holds a master's degree in criminal justice administration from Lynn University.  He is also a graduate of both the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Academy (208th Session) and the Southern Police Institute’s Administrative Officers Course (113th Session). 

David C. Pyrooz, PhD, is Associate Professor of Sociology and Faculty Associate of Prevention Science in the Institute of Behavioral Science at the University of Colorado Boulder. He received his Ph.D. in Criminology and Criminal Justice from Arizona State University in 2012, where he was a Graduate Research Fellow of the National Institute of Justice. His research interests are in the areas gangs and criminal networks, incarceration and reentry, developmental and life-course criminology, and criminal justice policy and practice. His research has been funded by the National Institute of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, National Institutes of Health, Google Ideas, the Charles Koch Foundation, and the Laura and John Arnold Foundation. He has authored over 100 refereed articles and book chapters, and several books, including On Gangs (Temple, 2022), Competing for Control: Gangs and the Social Order of Prison (Cambridge University Press, 2019), The Wiley Handbook of Gangs (Wiley-Blackwell, 2015), and Confronting Gangs: Crime and Community (Oxford, 2014). He has written opinion editorials that have appeared in outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, Denver Post, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and The Crime Report. He was the recipient of the inaugural New Scholar Award from the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences in 2015 and Ruth Shonle Cavan Young Scholar Award from the American Society of Criminology in 2016.