Robert John Zagar (born c. 1948) is a professor at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology working in forensic neuropsychology. Zagar studies predicting and preventing violence. He developed a model of violence from infancy to adulthood for males and females based on data collected at the "first" juvenile court founded in 1899, the Juvenile Division Circuit Court of Cook County. He worked with Chicago Mayor Richard Daley to target at risk youth diverting them from violence with jobs, mentors and anger management in a program called "Culture of Calm" funded by the U.S. Department of Justice saving lives and expenses. This was continued under Chicago Mayor Emanuel in a new program labelled "Get In" and "Summer Plus One." He helped Illinois Cook County President Preckwinkle reduce the prison population 56% releasing nonviolent offenders to electronic bracelets and other diversions. This resulted in President Barack Obama releasing 6,100 federal nonviolent offenders by commutation and pardon. He developed a test to measure violence among adults and adolescents named the Standard Predictor. His model for violence and test is featured in Loyola University of Chicago Professor James Garbarino's newest book. Garbarino noted the improved sensitivity and specificity of the Standard Predictor with area under the curve or AUC=.91-.99.
Robert Zager was born at Great Lakes Navy Base. He was raised in Illinois and Wisconsin, graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in Psychology, and earned a master's from Illinois Institute of Technology and a PhD from Northwestern University in research design and statistics. During a postdoctoral fellowship he earned a master's in public health from the University of Illinois at Chicago. He also completed a fellowship at Rush University Medical College. Zagar testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime Terrorism and Homeland Security on 24 July 2012 about his success in saving lives and expense in Chicago. He and his wife founded a nonprofit organization Society of the Friends of Radgoszcz to benefit youth in central Europe.