Criminal Justice Research Center

The goal of the CJRC is to collaborate on funded research with OSU faculty, staff, and students, and with criminal justice agencies at the local, state, or federal level. CJRC seeks to be a trusted resource and research partner on the OSU campus and especially within the Ohio criminal justice community, and to be a conduit connecting those two constituencies. CJRC can provide technical advice regarding the conduct of research in the criminal justice settings for those with limited backgrounds and expertise in criminology and criminal justice, and can assume the role of conducting that research for those with current research awards. We seek to collaborate with other investigators on proposals that have a criminal justice component, especially (but not limited to) public health issues such as substance abuse and physical well-being and mental health among the justice population. CJRC seeks to create a community of faculty, staff, and students united by their diverse interests in criminal justice issues and research from across the Arts and Sciences, and to unite them and generate collaborative opportunities to pursue cutting-edge, funded research. To accomplish our goals, we leverage the extensive expertise and resources that are embedded in our renowned faculty and expert staff across a wide variety of social and behavioral, arts and humanities, and natural and mathematical science disciplines. We identify core research areas and form working groups with the goal of pursuing and securing research funding. These include but are not limited to: prisoner reentry from adult and juvenile correctional facilities, juvenile justice issues, correctional treatment, gun violence, illicit drug use and the opioid epidemic, neighborhood crime hot spots, and various issues in policing, among others. We seek to re-imagine CJRC as a strategic home or "work-space" for research groups. CJRC will help organize and nurture these groups with the goal of enhancing their capacity to respond to and be successful in pursuing short- and long-term grant opportunities. The CJRC organizes periodic presentations on topics that contribute to the goals set forth above.