Jerry Ratcliffe

Dr Jerry Ratcliffe is a professor in the Department of Criminal Justice, and Director of the Center for Security and Crime Science, at Temple University, Philadelphia (USA). He served with London’s Metropolitan Police for a number of years on patrol duties, in an intelligence unit, and as a member of the Diplomatic Protection Group. Due to a winter mountaineering accident while ice climbing in the Scottish Highlands, he left the police service after 11 years. He completed a first class B.Sc. in Geography at the University of Nottingham (UK) and has a Ph.D. from the same institution. He is a Fellow of both the Academy of Experimental Criminology and the Royal Geographical Society.

He worked in Australia for a number of years, first as a lecturer for Charles Sturt University (based at the New South Wales Police College) where he coordinated Australia's National Strategic Intelligence Course. Dr Ratcliffe also worked as a senior research analyst with the Australian Institute of Criminology, where he conducted one of the first evaluations of an intelligence-led policing operation.

Since moving to the US in 2003, he has worked with numerous agencies and most closely the Philadelphia Police Department. He was the lead researcher on the Philadelphia Foot Patrol Experiment, a citywide study of foot patrol in violent crime hotspots which won awards from the ASC Division of Experimental Criminology and the International Association of Chiefs of Police. He has been a research adviser to the Philadelphia Police Commissioner and the Criminal Investigative Division of the FBI, and he regularly conducts intelligence-led policing training in Central America on behalf of the US State Department.

He has twice received the Professional Service Award from the International Association of Law Enforcement Intelligence Analysts (IALEIA), has been awarded the LEIU Distinguished Service Award, and in 2014 he received the Ronald V. Clarke ECCA award for contributions to environmental criminology and crime analysis.

Dr Ratcliffe has published over 70 research articles and five books including ‘Intelligence-Led Policing’ (a second edition was published in 2016), ‘Strategic Thinking in Criminal Intelligence’, 'GIS and Crime Mapping’ and 'Policing Illegal Drug Markets’. He is a member of the National Academies of Science Committee on Proactive Policing and the FBI National Academy Advisory Board. In 2015 the US Attorney General appointed him to the Department of Justice’s OJP Science Advisory Board.

Ratcliffe was an officer in the British Army reserves (Royal Engineers), has climbed the three highest mountains in Africa, led an expedition down the Selenga river in Siberia, and was the first non-Iban tribesman to successfully navigate (with a traditional carved boat) the rapids of the Temburong river in Borneo.

In what spare time remains, he likes to fly his seaplane, scuba dive, and drink single malt whisky (not all at the same time).