Criminal Justice Professor Contributing Expertise to Nancy Grace Show

It's been a whirlwind of a criminal justice career for Dr. Jorey Krawczyn, a Saint Leo University adjunct professor. The longtime law enforcement official and police psychologist whose career spans over four decades across 32 countries is now sharing his expertise as a regular contributor to a daily Nancy Grace show.

Originally from Erie, PA, Krawczyn grew up in Hernando and Pasco counties not far from what was Saint Leo College at the time. He is a 1968 alumnus of Hernando High School. He currently lives in Panama City Beach, FL. He and his wife, Linda, were high school sweethearts and have been married for 51 years. They have a daughter, two sons, and four grandchildren.

Varied Higher Education Achievements

Krawczyn attained a bachelor's in criminal justice and public safety administration from the University of West Florida in 1972. He earned a master's in counseling and human development from Troy State University in 1994 and is a Saint Leo alumnus with a master's in instructional design (MSID) he completed in 2019. His Doctor of Education degree in counseling psychology is from Argosy University which he earned in 2003.

Experience in Mental Health Counseling

For over eight years in the 2000s, he worked in a private mental health counseling practice with Dr. Ahmed Mohamed, a highly respected psychiatrist in the Florida panhandle.

"I had hospital privileges and made rounds doing work with prescribing medication," Krawczyn explains. "I did a lot of evaluations on abused and neglected children through the Department of Children and Families (DCF). I also interned in the prison system through the Correctional Corporation of America and worked with sex and violent offenders."

His work involved seeing and evaluating law enforcement officials as well.

Law Enforcement Career

In addition to his counseling and mental health evaluation work, Krawczyn has a wealth of experience in a number of traditional and unique law enforcement roles. His work has ranged from undercover narcotics investigations to serving as chief of police.

For three years, he worked as a senior police psychologist for the U.S. Department of Justice in its International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program (ICITAP). He was assigned to work overseas in Kyrgyzstan, Kosovo, and Tanzania.

"In Kosovo, they had a police academy with 10,000 members. I wrote the curriculum and got it accredited. This was certainly a new and different experience."

He served three additional years with the U.S. Department of State as an academic advisor in the International Law Enforcement Academy and spent two years in the department's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs working as a psychological advisor to foreign judges and prosecutors on transnational organized crime and radical extremism.

"I did a lot of work on anticorruption in that part of the world," he says. "I also developed a personality profile for internal security officers."

Plus, he contracted with the Department of State through which he developed a four-week course for judges and prosecutors. Dr. Robert Diemer and other Saint Leo faculty members contributed to this project as well.

In the U.S., he has testified as an expert witness in 22 state and federal court cases involving police behavior, police testing methodologies, and violent criminals.

Formally Getting into Teaching

Krawczyn has worn the teacher hat in many of his professional roles within the criminal justice field. Because of how much he enjoys educating others and helping them achieve their goals, he formally pursued teaching at the college level starting in 2009 when he began his adjunct instructor role for Saint Leo University.

He teaches in the master's in criminal justice and Doctor of Criminal Justice degree program. He has taught classes on investigative interviewing, methodologies of violence, and quantitative statistics and action research.

Krawczyn explains why he finds teaching so enjoyable.

"It's the interaction with the students that I really enjoy, even in the online setting," he says.

Working overseas felt a bit isolating to him at times, but his Saint Leo students always made him feel connected to home.

"Being in touch with students through my online courses has helped me maintain a level of sanity for me. I've been in some pretty remote places, but the good news is that you can teach from anywhere as long as you've got Wi-Fi."

The variety of students' unique backgrounds makes the profession interesting as well, he adds.

"I like seeing the continuation of advancements in higher education. More and more students are going back to school later in life. They're bringing a wealth of knowledge and experience with them. This has created some unique student perspectives and new paradigms in how we teach."

In the coming months, he will serve on several dissertation committees for doctoral students.

Along with Saint Leo, he has taught online courses for the University of Phoenix and the University of the Rockies.

Getting connected to the Nancy Grace Show

Earlier this year, Krawczyn was contacted by a producer who works for Nancy Grace, a longtime media personality and lawyer. She currently hosts Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, a daily show which airs on the Fox Nation streaming service and on SiriusXM Triumph Channel 111. It is also available as a podcast on major podcast platforms.

"I asked how he found out about me and he told me that experts refer other experts," Krawczyn recalls. "They were looking for experts to comment on police work and psychology."

He says the producer sends him cases in advance of recording the shows on which he contributes to help him collect his thoughts beforehand. On the March 29 show, he commented on the Derek Chauvin trial with Grace asking him about the psychological impact on the jury during such a polarizing case.

"They're going to be really under some serious stress not only for the evidence that they're going to view and what they're going to hear, but also the ramifications that they're going to have to come up with and weigh and bring out in their verdict," he said on the show.

On the April 20 program as the trial came to a close, she asked him about Chauvin's body language.

"The body language that he had definitely showed a lot of pressure and a lot of stress, even to the point where he was possibly questioning his own reactions to the testimony. He wasn't aware of it, like the fidgeting with his hands and looking around at times," he told Grace.

In addition to the Chauvin trial, he has been brought on to discuss several older cases with which he is familiar. Diane Downs shot her three children in Oregon in 1983, killing one and nearly murdering the other two, but claimed it was a stranger who did so after she pulled over to talk to a man who was flagging her down on the side of the road.

A 1994 case involved Susan Smith, a South Carolina mother who drowned her two young sons by letting her car roll into a lake.

"I was chief of police at the time. I vividly remember talking with the Panama City chief of police about this case. Susan Smith said her kids were kidnapped by a black man who had supposedly carjacked her. She did end up confessing to the murders."

A third case involved Shaerin Kelley, a woman from Washington state who hired two teenagers to murder her ex-husband in 2020.

"He was shot nine times but actually survived," Krawczyn says.

Krawczyn says it has been a positive experience to be part of the panels on the program.

"The shows are always interesting and I enjoy being on them. Nancy asks good questions and will lead you into the discussion so it's pretty obvious what she is looking for from you. She encourages her guests to chime in on anything as well."

He describes her personality and approach to the show.

"She's a very assertive individual. She is very good at analyzing the legal high points of each case and effectively bringing her guests into the conversation."

And what does it mean to him to contribute to a popular show like this?

"It really draws everything together that I've done in my life as far as my education, career, and the variety of situations I've encountered in law enforcement and psychology. This level of experience has been very beneficial in my life both professionally and personally."

Upcoming Publications

Krawczyn has a book due out this summer called Operation SOS: Practical Recommendations to Stop Officer Suicide. He is working on another book discussing what causes violent criminals to behave like they do from a psychological lens.

LEARN MORE: Visit Krawczyn's official website to learn more about his current consulting work.

Listen to episodes of the Nancy Grace show.