Lego
I own more Lego sets than I'd like to admit. They were easier to hide in a campus office than at home. Star Wars makes up most of the collection; the current build is the Batmobile.
About
Grant Drawve, PhD
I study how place shapes crime and public safety, and I try to make that research usable by the people who work on it every day.
I'm Vice President of Geospatial Crime Solutions at CAP Index, a crime risk scoring and modeling company. I was hired to build its Research & Innovation division, which has since brought four new crime risk products to market. You can learn more about them on the CAP Index website.
Day to day, I lead a team of crime and data analysts hunting data, standardizing the messiness, and developing pipelines. I am also CAP's research partner to the Retail Industry Leaders Association on its Vibrant Communities Initiative in Atlantic City, NJ and Clackamas County, OR, and I speak regularly to retail, security, and loss-prevention audiences.
Before CAP, I spent seven years on the faculty of the University of Arkansas, where I was associate director of the Crime & Security Data Analytics Lab and worked with police departments on why some places carry far more crime than others. The podcast, tutorials, and talks here come from the same goal: translate geographic, data, and technology insights into strategies people can use.
Career
2023 – now
Vice President of Geospatial Crime Solutions
CAP Index · Research & Innovation
Hired to build the Research & Innovation division. Brought four new products to market, leads a team of crime and data analysts, and partners with RILA on its Vibrant Communities Initiative.
2016 – 2023
Assistant, then Associate Professor
University of Arkansas · Sociology & Criminology
Taught spatial analysis, research methods, and criminological theory. Fulbright College Master Researcher Award, 2019.
2020 – 2023
Associate Director, Crime & Security Data Analytics Lab (CASDAL)
Terrorism Research Center, University of Arkansas
Applied crime analytics with police agencies, school districts, and public-health partners.
2015 – 2016
Post-Doctoral Research Associate
Rutgers University · School of Criminal Justice and Department of Psychology
Risk terrain modeling and risk-based policing with the Rutgers Center on Public Security.
Highlights
- $2.7MExternal funding as PI or Co-PINIJ, NSF, BJA, DHS, and OJJDP, plus city and nonprofit partners
- 2017NIJ Real-Time Crime Forecasting ChallengeSelected winner, with Caplan, Kennedy, and Piza
- IACPLeadership in Law Enforcement Research AwardEarned by Kansas City PD for the risk-based policing experiment
- Nat GeoBreakthrough, season 2Featured: Atlantic City risk-based policing project
Education
- PhD
- Criminal Justice
University of Arkansas at Little Rock - MA
- Criminology and Criminal Justice
Southern Illinois University Carbondale - BA
- Administration of Justice
Southern Illinois University Carbondale
Research and profiles
Publications, grants, teaching, and service are in my CV. A summary of the research is on the Research page.
Outside of work
Family
Five of us.
When we're not running between sports and activities, we're usually outside: hiking, biking, landscaping, or making the most of patio season.
The dogs, shortest to tallest
- Dorothy super-mutt
- Basil beagle mix
- Gambit laika
