Founded in 2003, Suffolk University's Center for Crime and Justice Policy Research (CCJPR) provides extensive expertise and methodological skills in the conduct of basic and applied research. We assist government agencies, community groups, academic institutions, and private sector organizations in the development, implementation, and evaluation of various criminal justice and social issues. In addition, CCJPR  sponsers an annual research symposium and  trains undergraduate and graduate students in primary research.  Students present their research at regional and national professional/scholarly meetings.

In addition to collaborative, community-based, public and private projects, the Center conducts objective, self-directed/internal research. The broad range of our research inlcudes crime causation, control, socioeconomic influences on criminality, archival/historic analysis of criminal activity and the evaluation of the criminal justice agencies. Projects are funded by Suffolk University, as well as public and private grants.

CCJPR staff members are skilled in quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis and policy evaluation, with specific expertise in female offenders, juvenile justice, corrections, family violence, sexual offernders and media and crime.

Recent Projects

In an effort to expand the range and quality of research within the field, the CCJPR is involved in a variety of research initiatives such as:

• Evaluation of employer's use of criminal background checks
• Analysis of police and high school student interactions in Everett and Cambridge, Massachusetts
• Research on juvenile court and family violence cases
• Project administration for a National Institute of Justice-funded arrestee drug abuse monitoring program
• Performing a needs assessment of women detained at Nashua Street Jail and their children to provide information for the Boston Municipal Court
• Interviewing women incarcerated at the Suffolk Count House of Corrections and MCI-Framingham in order to analyze pathways to prison
• Conducting a comparative historical analysis of women incarcerated in 1915 with 2004 inmate interview data
• Comprehensive community anti-gang and youth violence initiative in central and Western, MA
• Longitudinal - 5 year - study of women post-incarceration
• Gender injustice in Ecuadorian and U.S. prisons - 5 year study
• Student research project: Impact of Marijuana laws in Massachusetts. Presented at Eastern Sociological Society meeting, March 2010