NINA ROSE FISCHER
Scholar, Activist, Creative
PROFESSIONAL BIO
Dr. Nina Rose Fischer (she/her) is a tenured Associate Professor at City University of New York John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Interdisciplinary Studies and the Graduate Center Social Welfare Phd program. She is a leader in developing social justice oriented pedagogy, policies and research design. She innovates praxis-based experiential learning courses about social justice to co-create solutions for institutionalized oppression. She directed the prestigious Vera Fellows Program and was a Social Justice Teaching Fellow. Dr. Fischer has 30 years of experience in harm reduction and youth justice as an organizer, therapist, creative, administrator, program developer, policy maker and researcher. She is currently Principal Investigator for three original research projects 1) youth and police relations; 2) substance use harm reduction with teens; and 3) arrest diversion for youth with gun charges. She was recently invited by the United Nations in Vienna to present her harm reduction research. She published a book called The Case for Youth Police Initiative: Interdependent Fates and the Power of Peace an ethnographic exploration of youth/police relations; and recommendations for how law enforcement can benefit from social welfare infrastructure. She has also published in both peer reviewed journals and popular periodicals. She is Executive Producer of an in progress documentary series based on her book. Critical race, class and gender analyses are central to Dr. Fischer’s work.
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PUBLISHED WORK
Book, Sizzle Reel and Articles
The Case for Youth Police Initiative: Interdependent Fates and the Power of Peace offers first-person narratives from youth, police, and community members. Police shootings and other negative exchanges between community members and the police have brought heightened awareness to the volatile relations between and police and the communities they serve. The Youth Police Initiative (YPI) was founded in Baltimore in 2003 to prevent young people from being arrested and incarcerated, and from gun violence and fatalities- through training police officers to humanize in their encounters instead of arresting, harassing and brutalizing young people. The training has been replicated in over 40 cities in the United States, Belize and Bermuda. Youth with the most police contact learn to resolve conflicts safely while they teach police officers, some with a track record of citizen complaints, to treat young people with understanding and respect.
The voices of the participants reveal surprising changes in attitudes and actions from before to after YPI’s implementation. YPI’s success in addressing tensions between youth and police maps out a blueprint for progress across the US and globally.
Suitable for scholars and researchers in sociology, psychology, and social welfare, as well as practitioners on the front lines, The Case for Youth Police Initiative provokes dialogue on best practices to actually change the volatile climate between police and the young people in their communities.
Dr. Fischer has also published three articles related to her research with young people and police: "Overcoming stereotypes between officers and teens," "What young people and police can learn from each other," and "Interdependent fates: Youth and police—Can they make peace?"
Sizzle Reel for Documentary Based on Book
Produced by Emmy award winners Rick Milewski and Greg Tillman
Nina Rose conducted the first evaluation of a cutting edge harm reduction substance use curriculum for teens that includes the effects of race and class on drug policy called Safety First Real Drug Education for Teens developed by the Drug Policy Alliance with over 800 high school freshmen. Her research earned her the Dr. Andrew Weil Award for Research in Drug Education. She published an article based on her findings called "School-based harm reduction with adolescents: a pilot study" in Substance Abuse Treatment, Prevention, and Policy (2022) 17:79 https://doi.org/10.1186/s13011-022-00502-1.
Learning by Doing
Here is a Podcast where Dr. Fischer shares her social justice oriented pedagogy:
“Creating a framework for a culturally affirming, inclusive and anti-racist curriculum and pedagogy”
COURSE OVERVIEW
Nina Rose has covered a full range of undergraduate and graduate-level courses. As an experienced Professor, she teaches a variety of classes spanning the introductory, intermediate and advanced levels of her field. She developed a plethora of original syllabi:
Vera Social Justice praxis seminar; Gender, Justice and Sexuality; The Substance of Substance Use Deconstructing the War on Drugs: Policy Then and Now; Critical Community Policing; Alternate Worlds: Justice Philosophies; Youth Justice Then and Now; Stereotypes: 'You People'; Justice Who’s In and Who’s Out; Deconstructing the War on Terror; English: Advocate New York, Writing for Justice, and many more.
She also developed brand new courses approved by New York State governance:
Gender and Sexuality in a Global Context for asynchronous virtual learning
Experiential Learning in Social Justice
Colorism: A Global Perspective
White Supremacy: Constructions of Race and Institutionalized Racism
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