Tom Stucky: Connecting systems to improve criminal justice

Posted on July 7, 2025 by Leslie Wells

A man stands in a window-lined hallway wearing a blue blazer, blue shirt, and yellow tie. — O’Neill Professor Tom Stucky

O’Neill Professor Tom Stucky didn’t intend to work in academia. After earning his bachelor’s degree, he was focused on policing.

“I was like many people who were interested in law enforcement in the early 90s,” he chuckles.

While he says he originally wanted to pursue a career in the FBI, he shifted gears toward state and local policing, eventually working as an officer with the Ohio Department of Liquor Control. But the schedule and lifestyle didn’t align with what he wanted for his family. So, he went back to school to earn his master’s degree and then his Ph.D. in criminology.

“Several of my family members are in law enforcement and my parents were both teachers, so teaching with a criminal justice focus was a natural fit for me,” he explains. “It also was an opportunity for me to continue to be involved in helping to shape good public policy around criminal justice through research.”

Since arriving at O’Neill Indianapolis more than two decades ago, Stucky has taught hundreds of courses, mentored students, served as the school’s executive associate dean in Indianapolis, helped launch its new digital forensics internship, and now serves as faculty fellow to IU Indianapolis’ Office of the Chancellor.

In that time, he’s also studied everything from anti-gang and violent crime initiatives to the impact urban politics and income inequality have on crime. And he’s found a multitude of factors that all impact each other and contribute to what makes a community livable.

“Everyone wants to feel safe as they’re going about their daily life,” he explains. “So, while the criminal justice system is partly about holding individuals who have committed a crime accountable, it’s also about preventing criminal behavior in the first place.”

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O’Neill faculty head to South Korea for Public Management Research Conference

Posted on June 23, 2025 by Leslie Wells

Three-grid photo image with a man and two women, all wearing suit jackets. Text reads Public Management Research Conference.

Three O’Neill Indianapolis faculty members are participating in this year’s Public Management Research Conference from the Public Management Research Association. The event takes place June 25–28 at Seoul National University in Seoul, South Korea.

During the conference, 17 papers from O’Neill faculty and Ph.D. students from both the Indianapolis and Bloomington campuses will be presented and discussed during the conference,.

“We are thrilled to have such a strong presence at this year’s Public Management Research Conference,” said Siân Mooney, dean of the O’Neill School. “Our faculty and students have worked tirelessly and are excited to share their findings with the global academic community. The conference provides an excellent platform for exchanging ideas and fostering collaboration.”

Among the O’Neill Indianapolis representatives with papers being presented at the event are Assistant Professor Christian Buerger, Associate Professor Sanghee Park, and Assistant Professor Vernise Estorcien. Estorcien is chairing a session on police administration during the conference. She also will present her paper Bridging the Gap: How Youth Behaviors Influence the Density of Youth Nonprofits in U.S. Counties. The study explores whether indicators of youth risk–such as juvenile arrest and dropout rates–affect the presence of youth-focused nonprofits at the county level.

Park will discuss the work she and Buerger have done on property forfeitures by law enforcement. Their study examined whether electoral cycles influence forfeiture patterns in city police departments and sheriff’s offices in communities with different socioeconomic and demographic profiles. Park also will review her study Balancing Control and Autonomy: How Organizational Hierarchy and External Shock Shape Human Preferences Across Sectors, which looks at how human inclinations toward control and autonomy are shaped by organizational hierarchy and forms.

For more information about PMRC and the full schedule of presentations, please visit the conference website.

Portraits of Resilience: Research project showcases risk and resiliency through art

Posted on June 16, 2025 by Leslie Wells

An art exhibit with four veils of sheer fabric in the foreground, and a display of photos on plywood in the background. — The Portraits of Resilience exhibit was part of a research and art collaboration, led by O’Neill Assistant Professor Courtney Page-Tan. *Photo credit: Cierra Johnson*

As Andre Parnell strolled the streets of Indianapolis’ east side, camera in hand. He was searching for a moment—one that would capture the realities, risks, and resilience within his community.

“The Far Eastside is more than where we’re from—it’s where we shape who we are,” Parnell explains. “Every street tells a story; every neighbor holds a legacy. It’s on us to carry that forward.”

Parnell is doing that through art. He was one of four artists selected to be part of a unique research project, led by O’Neill Assistant Professor Courtney Page-Tan. She worked with the Indy Arts Council to select Parnell, along with Corey Ewing, Cierra Johnson, and LaNiah Ray as the artists.

Four people stand around an an art installation on plywood. — Andre Parnell, LaNiah Ray-Reed, Cierra Johnson, and Corey Ewing (L-R) were the four local artists helped capture images for the research project.
Photo credit: Cierra Johnson

“The artists’ stories are so incredibly powerful,” Page-Tan explains. “It’s one thing to hear about problems, but to see them through a collection of photographs really creates a powerful visual.”

Their goal was to identify sources of both pain and progress in four Indianapolis communities: the Far Eastside, Martindale-Brightwood, Arlington Woods, and the Near Eastside.

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Environmental policy expert Janet McCabe joins O’Neill School

Posted on May 28, 2025 by Leslie Wells

A woman with short gray hair is wearing a suit. She stands with her elbow leaning on a stair railing. — Former EPA Deputy Director Janet McCabe will lead a course at O’Neill Indianapolis during the 2025–26 academic year. *(Photo by Liz Kaye, Indiana University)*

Written by: Leslie Wells, Rebecca Trimpe, and Nikki Livingston

Janet McCabe, former deputy administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, is joining the O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs to help prepare the next generation of leaders for service. That includes leading a course through O’Neill Indianapolis during the 2025–26 academic year.

McCabe has a long and distinguished career as an environmental policy expert working in public service, law, and academia. She also served on the O’Neill School’s Dean’s Council as an advisor and ambassador for the school.

“Janet McCabe’s work throughout her career has been a testament to the power of public service, and her passion for protecting both people and the planet is truly inspiring,” said Siân Mooney, dean of the O’Neill School. “We’re thrilled she is returning to IU to join O’Neill and share her invaluable experience with our students.”

At O’Neill, she will serve as a visiting professor and an executive in residence at the Paul H. O’Neill Center for Leadership in Public Service, leading guest lectures and seminars, offering professional coaching to students, and helping build relationships with key stakeholders.

During her yearlong appointment with IU, McCabe also will serve as a distinguished scholar at IU’s Robert H. McKinney School of Law and as a senior policy advisor at the Environmental Resilience Institute. She previously worked with both McKinney and ERI from 2017 to 2021 as a professor of practice and ERI director.

“I am so pleased to be returning to Indiana University,” McCabe said. “The opportunity to work with students, faculty and researchers in the law and public policy schools, and with the amazing staff at the IU Environmental Resilience Institute, brings together so many issues and ideas that I have spent my career working on. It takes both law and public policy to effect change for the benefit of society, especially in the challenging area of climate change, and IU is training the best of the best to make a difference.”

In October 2024, McCabe was the keynote speaker for O’Neill’s two-day Roads to Removal Indiana conference. The event focused on how Indiana and the Midwest could help the United States become a net-zero carbon emissions nation by 2050. She retired from the EPA just prior to that event, having played a key role in shaping the nation’s environmental policies and overseeing all management aspects of the EPA and its workforce since 2021.

To read more about McCabe’s upcoming work across Indiana University, visit this link.

O’Neill Indianapolis selects Rep. Cherrish Pryor for Distinguished Alumni Award

Posted on May 19, 2025 by Leslie Wells

Rep. Cherrish Pryor (MPA’05) received the 2025 Distinguished Alumni Award from the O’Neill School.

Listen to Rep. Pryor on the O’Neill Speaks podcast.

As a little girl in Holly Springs, Mississippi, Cherrish Pryor remembers watching her grandmother work as she looked on from the window of her grandparents’ pickup truck. Her grandmother would walk to a house with a voter registration form in hand, talk to whoever opened the door, then walk back to the truck.

Another Black voter registered. Then, it was on to another house and another door knock.

Pryor says she knew what her grandmother was doing was different than what most other women were doing at the time, but she didn’t fully grasp the importance as a child.

“I was just there for fun, just to get out the house—it was exciting to me,” Pryor admits. “But now, seeing and hearing her stories, what she did is just amazing to me.”

Her grandmother campaigned for candidates, helped secure wins for the first African American sheriff and first African American school superintendent in their area.

Even before Cherrish was born, her grandmother was part of the Civil Rights Movement and fought to integrate schools and secure transportation for Black students in Holly Springs.

Two women wearing pink and black sit next two each other, smiling. There is a wooden piano in the background. — Cherrish Pryor and her grandmother, who influenced her current career in policy and politics.

“The buses would pick up the white kids but drove right past the Black homes and children,” she says. “So, my grandfather would take all the Black kids to school and my grandmother wrote to the state of Mississippi. The state wrote back and told the superintendent the buses had to also pick up the Black children.”

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