Listen to Season 1 Now!
Season 1 Episode Guide & One-Pagers
Episode 1: Language Matters
The words we use to describe certain individuals or groups matter greatly. Words possess indirect connotation or tone beyond their direct meanings. This episode considers language around individuals and groups involved with the criminal legal system and offers suggestions for how to make sure language is specific, stigma-free, and humanizing. This episode fits nicely with the JCOIN goal of capacity building and enhances the entire LEAP curriculum.
Episode 2: Culture & Climate
The way things work inside an organization or “how things get done” is what we commonly refer to as the culture or climate of an organization. But culture is more than just that…it is often a facilitator or a barrier to change and reform AND studying it is hard. In this episode, we discuss the many layers of culture and climate and why/how each matters. The episode pairs perfectly with the LEAP Learners Course on Justice Cultures by Dr. David Farabee and the Correctional Staff course by Dr. Lauren Brinkley-Rubenstein.
Episode 3: Prison Research
We. Need. More. Prison Research. However, access is not always easy. This episode discusses some of the challenges researchers face when doing, or trying to do, research in prisons and offers some suggestions to bolster relationships with carceral institutions that yield data, findings, and…more research. This episode is a wonderful accompaniment to all of the LEAP Learners courses.
Download One-Pager (PDF)
Episode 4: Co-Producing Knowledge
You’ve probably heard of researcher-practitioner partnerships…the ways that science and practice can collaborate. But, have you heard of co-producing knowledge? This episode covers this important topic by taking these relationships further than just how they’re formed…and into what amazing things can be accomplished when scientists and practitioners team up. You’ll find that this episode is a great companion to the LEAP Justice Cultures and Correctional Staff courses.
Download One-Pager (PDF)
Episode 5: Research Ethics
There are so many things for researchers to consider when conducting research inside prisons and/or jails. One important part of this research is the ethical concerns around consent and confidentiality. This podcast episode pairs nicely with the LEAP course in Justice Cultures by Dr. David Farabee by engaging listeners with important ethical concerns and offering some practical advice to avoid ethical pitfalls.
Download One-Pager (PDF)
Episode 6: Mixed Methods
Yes, a podcast episode about research methods! Yes, it’s format is fun, interesting, and user-friendly…even though the title is a bit boring. Methods are how researchers conduct their studies and mixed methods means they use multiple methods simultaneously to gather richer data to answer their questions. This podcast provides some explanation for methods terms and ideas that may baffle you….and it pairs wonderfully with Dr. Liz Evans’ LEAP Learners Course on Mixed Methods.
Download One-Pager (PDF)
Episode 7: Implementation Science
Did you know that Implementation Science is a specific way of examining HOW organizations implement (or start doing) evidence-based practices (EBPs)… practices that are backed by science? If you don’t already know much about implementation science, this podcast was literally created for you. Try listening to this and then engaging in the LEAP Learners’ course by Dr. Gregory Aarons on Implementation Science. You’ll be amazed what you’ll learn.
Episode 8: Risk/Needs
This episode considers the ever-important topic of the risks and needs of individuals on community supervision like probation or parole. While researchers and some practitioners are learning more about risk and needs, there are still a LOT of unanswered questions like which risks and needs matter most and how they are best addressed. This podcast looks deep into this question using an easy-to-comprehend example of grocery shopping. Confused? Don’t be…have a listen.
Episode 9: PO & EBP
This episode considers how attitudes, leadership, and training matter for probation officers when using evidence based practices with clients. The study it covers is straight-forward and simple to understand but this podcast breaks it down even further for listeners and provides some common sense take-aways from the science.
Episode 10: HOPE
This podcast episode takes listeners on a cross-country road-trip from study site to study site looking deep into the Honest Opportunity Probation Enforcement program. It starts in Hawaii but weaves its way through four other field sites with differing results. Tune in and see if there is hope for HOPE, (or not).
Download One-Pager (PDF)
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The Aced It! podcast is the place to go if you're trying to find out what's new in the health and justice research world, but don't have the time, energy, or know-how to decipher all that academic writing. In each episode, we break down a research article, report, or scientific finding into everyday language so you can not only understand it... but so you can actually use it!
The podcasts are short (all around 15 minutes long) so you don't have to have a lot of time and because it's a podcast, you can listen to it wherever you are on any of your favorite devices. Aced It! is a little gift to students, researchers, practitioners, or anyone else.
Aced It! is brought to you by the Capacity Building Core of the Justice Community Opioid Innovation Network and sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuse as part of the National Institutes of Health's Heal Initiative. We hope you enjoy listening.
Aced It! also graciously thanks Heather Toronjo and Arden Richards-Karamarkovich for their fabulous research and scripting and for the one-pagers that accompany each episode. And, thank you to the countless students who contributed ideas and episode scripts. We also thank Tisha Wiley, Lori Ducharme, and Julia Zur at NIDA for their ever-thoughtful support and guidance and Faye Taxman at ACE! for her career-long devotion to inspiring change and improvement to criminal legal organizations and all those who work with or are served by them. Finally, a ruckus thank you to Shannon Magnuson (GMU and Justice Systems Partners) for her part in inspiring the creation of this podcast.
Danielle S. Rudes, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Criminology, Law and Society and the Deputy Director of the Center for Advancing Correctional Excellence (ACE!) at George Mason University. She received her B.A. in mass communication (broadcasting) from the State University of New York at Plattsburgh, her M.A. in Communications from the University of New Orleans, and an M.A. and PhD in Sociology from the University of California, Irvine. Dr. Rudes is an expert qualitative researcher whose methods include ethnographic observation, interviews, and focus groups with over 20 years of experience working with corrections agencies at the federal, state and local county levels including prisons, jails, probation/parole agencies, and problem-solving courts. She is recognized for her work examining how social control organizations and their middle management and street-level workers understand, negotiate, and at times, resist change.
Dr. Rudes’ experience includes working with corrections agencies during adoption, adaptation, and implementation of various workplace reforms. She also works with institutional corrections (both general population and solitary confinement) to examine key areas of living and working in these carceral spaces including decision making, perceptions of risk/punishment, and negotiating change/reform.
Dr. Rudes received funding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the Bureau of Justice Assistance, the National Science Foundation, and the National Institute of Justice. She also serves on the Editorial Board of the journals Criminal Justice & Behavior, Victims & Offenders and the journal Law & Policy and is an Associate Editor at the Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment. Dr. Rudes received the American Society of Criminology’s Teaching Award in 2018, the Mentoring Award from the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences in 2021, and several George Mason University awards including Teaching Excellence, Mentoring Excellence, and the Emerging Researcher, Scholar, Creator Award.
Dr. Rudes works closely with her team at ACE! to develop each podcast episode and records all episodes from her home studio.