Robert Hutchison joined MFJ in 2016 while working on his Ph.D. in Criminology at the Pennsylvania State University. As MFJ’s Director of Research Management, he is co-managing the Research Team, overseeing the processing and management of MFJ’s data sets, internal data auditing, and publishing academic works to establish MFJ as a scientific resource.

Robert’s dissertation, “Shared History, Shared Decisions: Using Social Networks to Examine Court Communities,” takes a fresh look at the court communities’ perspective developed by Eisenstein, et al., by applying a social networks approach. Robert is looking at the impact of experience and relationships among prosecutors, judges, and defense attorneys upon case outcomes.

Robert’s previous work has produced reports to the Pennsylvania legislature and a publication in the Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency.

His research interests include social networks, courts, corrections, life course criminology, and criminological theory.