Chris Giacomantonio

Education

• DPhil (Criminology), University of Oxford
• MA (Sociology), Dalhousie University
• BA (Criminology), Simon Fraser University

Research Interests

Chris is a criminologist and social policy researcher with over a decade of experience conducting research in Canada, the US, the UK and the European Union. His academic research has focused on the organization, governance, and reform of public police in democratic societies, and he also conducts social policy and evaluation research on a wide range of topics including criminal justice and security, harm reduction, health and social care, and social finance.

Alongside his work at Dalhousie, Chris is a scientific advisor at Pier Labs, a non-profit social innovation outpost based in Halifax. Prior to working with Pier Labs, Chris was the research coordinator for the Halifax Regional Police, and before that he led the policing research portfolio as a senior analyst at the RAND Corporation's European offices.

Chris is interested in supervising graduate students with interests in alternatives to policing, police reform and governance.

Selected Publications

Giacomantonio, C., Litmanovitz, Y., Bennell, C., & Jones, D. J. (2022). Expressing uncertainty in criminology: Applying insights from scientific communication to evidence-based policing. Criminology & Criminal Justice, online June 2022. 

Giacomantonio, C., Goodwin, S., & Carmichael, G. (2020). Learning to de-escalate: evaluating the behavioural impact of Verbal Judo training on police constables. Police Practice and Research, 21(4), 401-417.

Giacomantonio, C., Mugford, R., Maslov, A., & Lawrence, A. (2019). Developing a common data standard for measuring attitudes toward the police in Canada. Ottawa: Public Safety Canada.

Giacomantonio, C. (2018). Setting realistic expectations: The narrow use-case for Social Impact Bonds. Journal of Community Safety and Well-Being, 3(3), 93-95.

Giacomantonio, C., & Litmanovitz, Y. (2017). Implementation fidelity in a loosely coupled system: the challenges of maintaining consistent ‘problem theory’ and ‘programme theory’ in a multi-force training pilot. Policing and Society, 27(6), 586-601.

Giacomantonio, C. (2015). Policing integration: The sociology of police coordination work. London: Palgrave Macmillan.