By Luke Gentile
The University of Maryland has received a $500,000 grant from the state for the development of a new Maryland Crime Research and Innovation Center, according to the university’s Division of Research.
The money, provided by the Maryland Governor’s Office of Crime Control & Prevention (GOCCP), will help UMD create an office that will allow students and faculty better view the causes and patterns of crime and how to prevent them.
“There was an application process,” said Dawn Pulliam, the project director and principal investigator for UMD.
“We had worked with the governor’s office of crime control and prevention on a previous effort. Looking at their notice of funding announcements and working with them, we recognized there is a real need to have an interdisciplinary, statewide research hub that looks at violent crime and reduces it.”
Pulliam said the center will look at crime through a wide lens, using the tools and faculty of several different colleges on campus. These include the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences, the Robert H. Smith School of Business, the School of Public Health, the A. James Clark School of Engineering, the College of Information Studies, and the College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences.
“There are five main areas in the center: gangs, drug trafficking and gun trafficking, violence, victimization and opioids and narcotics,” Pulliam said. “We want to be the research hub for the state. We ask which gaps need to be filled in between the groups and what the state needs in these areas.”
According to Pulliam, because crime is always changing, it has become necessary to pull in resources from all areas of study in order to combat it. She said the opioid crisis is a prime example.
“Opioids is not a one-dimensional issue,” she said. “You have social work and government and politics. You start looking at data analytics, that’s computer science and business. So, in order to be efficient and effective when combating opioids, you have to use all those various disciplines to address the problem.”
Grant Leonard, a junior criminal justice major, said he is looking forward to the opening of the center and the opportunity it could present.
“Having a whole center devoted to research tends to help expand the majors involved and create more opportunities for them,” he said. “It would definitely help as a CCJS major, because you will be able to have all the resources you need if you are confused or want to delve into a specific area,”
Leonard also hopes the new center provides more hands-on work and less theory.
“There’s not much [academic] diversity in criminal justice classes,” he said.
Currently, Pulliam is addressing the governance structure of the center and determining which research models it will use. One representative from each college participating in the center will come together to help determine the research plan.
Pulliam said that to combine both the public and private sector, the center is looking for outside partners and contributors.
“There are different industry partners that do align with this initiative. Microsoft would be one and maybe a Marriot, who focuses on human trafficking with the hotel associations. Deloitte has reached out to us to look at data forensics,” she said.
With the help of the governor’s “seed money,” private partners and the center’s own research, Pulliam hopes that the center will become self-sustaining. She said the first five months of the one-year initiative will be dedicated to laying a foundation to achieve this goal.
“The university has been working very hard at strengthening our relationships to the state and really trying to find ways to leave our footprint and help the state in various ways, to make the lives better in Maryland,” she said.