Alisha Caldwell Jimenez


Alisha Caldwell Jimenez is from Park Forest, IL and received her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and Spanish with a Certificate of Legal Studies at Saint Louis University in Saint Louis, MO. Alisha joined the Legal Decision-making Lab as a dual-degree JD-PhD graduate student. She earned her Juris Doctorate at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Law and currently continues to complete her graduate studies in Social Psychology. Alisha is an advanced graduate student studying criminal justice issues, with a primary focus in juvenile justice. Her primary interests include discrimination and prejudice towards youth in the adult and juvenile justice systems and identifying the best interventions to combat the school-to-prison pipeline.

Alisha served as a Graduate Research Assistant and Fellow for the Vera Institute of Justice’s Prosecution and Racial Justice Program where they examine prosecutorial decision-making in a Nebraska county. The research examined how and when county attorneys use plea bargaining and its relationship to case outcomes. While working in the Legal Decision-making lab, she has studied both adult and juvenile interventions in probation and diversion. Some of her applied work has included validating risk assessments, LS/CMI and the YLS(CMI), as they are used in adult and juvenile probation across the state of Nebraska. She has also evaluated adult probation programs administered by the Nebraska Office of Probation Administration and juvenile delinquency interventions funded by the Nebraska Crime Commission. Alisha has worked directly with juvenile programs to screen, evaluate, and develop programs for at-risk/delinquent youth in the state of Nebraska.

For her master’s research, Alisha is examining the role of explicit and implicit racial bias in how juvenile diversion officers decide what to include in juvenile diversion plans. The research seeks to identify and understand the relationship between race/ethnicity and the quality and demand of juvenile diversion plans. It also examines the role of system justification and threat in how diversion officers select the content of diversion plans.

During the course of her studies, Alisha has taught courses in introductory psychology and the psychology of diversity, and has guest lectured on topics related to juvenile justice and legal decision-making. When she is not working in the lab or writing, Alisha likes to spend her free time with her husband, Efrain, and her puppy, Maisy, or visit her family in Chicago.

Publications and manuscripts in progress

 Wiener, R.L., Caldwell, A.D., Delgado, R.H., Vardsveen, T., McCracken, E., Reed, K. (2016). The role of race in offendesr risk assessment in the state of Nerbaska. Manuscript in Preparation.

Wiener, R.L., Reed, K., Delgado, R.H., Caldwell, A.D. (2014). Validation study of the LS/CMI assessment tool in Nebraska (Research Report July 2014). Retrieved from State of Nebraska Judicial Branch Publications and Reports website: https://supremecourt.nebraska.gov/sites/supremecourt.ne.gov/files/reports/courts/validation-study-ls-cmiassessment-tool-ne.pdf

Recent Posters and Presentations

 Caldwell, A.D., Wiener, R.L., Reed, K., Delgado, R.H. (2015, May). Measuring risk in probationers: Are there racial disparities? Paper presented at Law and Society Annual Meeting, Seattle, WA.

 Caldwell, A.D., Wiener, R.L., Reed, K., Delgado, R.H. (2015, March). Racial disparities in measuring risk in probationers with the LS/CMI. Paper presented at American Psychology-Law Society Annual Conference, San Diego, CA.