Willing to accept Secondary students for Fall 2025
mfondacaro@jjay.cuny.edu
Mark Fondacaro is currently a Professor in Psychology & Law Doctoral Program at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the Graduate Center, CUNY. Before joining the faculty at John Jay, he was an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Florida and an Associate Director of the Levin College of Law’s Center on Children and Families. He received a B.A. in psychology with an outside concentration in the biological sciences from Stony Brook University and a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Indiana University-Bloomington. He pursued post-doctoral training in social ecology at Stanford University before completing his legal training at Columbia Law School.
Professor Fondacaro has co-authored (with Christopher Slobogin) a book entitled “Juveniles at Risk: A Plea for Preventive Justice” that was published by Oxford University Press. He has authored numerous articles in both law reviews and behavioral science journals on issues of procedural justice, due process, family conflict resolution, and juvenile and criminal justice reform. He is currently developing two new programs of research with colleagues and students: the first is on the paradoxical promise of plea bargaining where he and colleagues are drawing on social ecological theory, administrative law, and procedural justice research to transform plea bargaining from a system based primarily on punishment to one that rewards recidivism reduction, crime prevention, and rehabilitation. The second program of research focuses on Gun Safety and Red Flag laws, integrating Supreme Court decisions on the second amendment, recent federal and state level gun safety initiatives, and risk management research to establish model guidelines for Red Flag laws that balance public safety and due process.
Over the past 13 years, Professor Fondacaro helped to develop and implement training programs for the NYPD on managing situations involving emotionally disturbed persons including scenario based training with new recruits, newly promoted Sergeants, Lieutenants, and Captains, the Emergency Services Unit, and the elite Hostage Negotiation Team. He also worked with a team of high level administrators from the NYPD and other John Jay faculty to develop a Crisis Intervention Training Program for police officers on patrol aimed at deescalating conflict.
Research Topics:
Law & Social Science, Criminal Responsibility, Law & Neuroscience, Risk Assessment & Management, Gun Safety & Red Flag Laws, and Evidence-Based Transformation of Plea Bargaining and the Juvenile & Adult Criminal Legal Systems
Current Projects/Research Interests
Paradoxical Promise of Plea Bargaining:
Developing a social ecological framework that places the law and social science on equal footing and provides a reconceptualization of criminal responsibility, procedural justice, and accountability that highlights the paradoxical promise of plea bargaining as the antidote to mass incarceration.
Gun Safety & Red Flag Laws:
Integrating law and social science to develop evidence-based guidelines for Red Flag laws that draw on risk assessment and management research and balance public safety and due process.
Recent Publications
Fondacaro, M.R. (2024). Social ecology, preventive intervention and the administrative transformation of the criminal legal system. Georgia State Law Review, 40, 277-311
Vaynman, A.D., & Fondacaro, M.R. (2022). Prosecutorial discretion, justice, and compassion: Reestablishing balance in our legal system. Stetson Law Review, 52, 31-53.
Stenkamp, A.M., & Fondacaro, M.R. (2022). Free will belief and the impact on procedural justice. Applied Psychology in Criminal Justice, 16, 200-220.
Jay, A.C. V., Stone, C.B., Fondacaro, M.R., Yoon, J., & Zuraw, K. (2022). Similarity leniency in mens rea determinations and the mediating role of causal attributions. Applied Psychology in Criminal Justice, 16, 129-155.
Katz, R. R., & Fondacaro, M. R. (2021). Fight, flight, and free will: The effect of trauma informed psychoeducation on perceived culpability and punishment for juvenile and adult offenders. Behavioral Sciences & the Law.
Korovich, M., & Fondacaro, M. (2021). The criminalized victim: evaluating public perceptions of sex trafficked individuals. Journal of child sexual abuse, 1-19.
