June 03, 2022

Media availability: SIU criminology prof researches gun violence

Tammy Rinehart Kochel, a Southern Illinois University Carbondale professor of criminology and criminal justice, is available for interviews about gun violence.

Kochel is a gun violence and policing expert for the Crime and Justice Research Alliance and serves on the Illinois Firearm Violence Research Group. Three of Kochel’s most recent research projects address gun violence in Springfield, Illinois; St. Louis County, Missouri, and Carbondale. Kochel is also working with several faculty members from SIU Carbondale’s School of Justice and Public Safety and the School of Human Sciences on the Carbondale Gun Violence Needs Assessment.

Kochel has been at the forefront of applied policing research for more than 20 years and most recently has been researching the impact of police practices on police-community relationships in high crime areas. Her research is critical for improving the quality of policing and police-community relations, and she has partnerships with law enforcement agencies. She can be reached at tkochel@siu.edu for her cellphone number and is available by email, telephone, Zoom and on-camera interviews as needed.