2008 Woodie Awards
Students receive old house for recreating crime scenes
Sarah Scott
Issue date: 4/17/08 Section: News
Justice systems students will have their own house to use to solve a crime for the rest of the semester.
Justice systems professor Marjorie Burick-Hughes will be using the house located northwest of Barnett Hall for her scientific investigation class to solve a simulated crime.
"The students got the opportunity to get some hands-on work, [they] basically have gone from inside the classroom and what they've learned, now, to an actual simulated crime scene so that they can experience kind of the stress, the pressure of what it's like," Burick-Hughes said.
"I just found out that it was vacated and asked [Department Chair] Professor [Marty] Jayne if I could use it," Burick-Hughes said. "He came back with the keys and said, 'Yeah, it would be alright.'"
Burick-Hughes said the class only will use the house for this semester and that this is not the first time one of her classes has gotten to evaluate a simulated crime scene.
"Last semester, on Halloween night, we used an abandoned house that the police department actually uses for their police officers for training," Burick-Hughes said. "And then we simulated a crime scene there."
Burick-Hughes said the experience offers students much more than her lectures alone would.
"It gave them good experience as to what looked out of place, ... what looked like it had been left there for a while, such as with cobwebs or something that was extensively dirty or folded in such a way that you know that it had been there for a while," Burick-Hughes said.
Burick-Hughes said many jobs in law enforcement will have to deal with crime scenes at least occasionally. She said that even if a student decides not to become a detective, he or she might have to gather evidence at a crime scene if a detective is not available.
"It's good for them," Burick-Hughes said. "They learn how to approach the scene, how to render it safe, how to go ahead and ... observe it, how to take photographs. At least now, when they go to the crime scene now they have to think, 'What do I have here, what do we need to do, what's the process?'"
Justice systems professor Marjorie Burick-Hughes will be using the house located northwest of Barnett Hall for her scientific investigation class to solve a simulated crime.
"The students got the opportunity to get some hands-on work, [they] basically have gone from inside the classroom and what they've learned, now, to an actual simulated crime scene so that they can experience kind of the stress, the pressure of what it's like," Burick-Hughes said.
"I just found out that it was vacated and asked [Department Chair] Professor [Marty] Jayne if I could use it," Burick-Hughes said. "He came back with the keys and said, 'Yeah, it would be alright.'"
Burick-Hughes said the class only will use the house for this semester and that this is not the first time one of her classes has gotten to evaluate a simulated crime scene.
"Last semester, on Halloween night, we used an abandoned house that the police department actually uses for their police officers for training," Burick-Hughes said. "And then we simulated a crime scene there."
Burick-Hughes said the experience offers students much more than her lectures alone would.
"It gave them good experience as to what looked out of place, ... what looked like it had been left there for a while, such as with cobwebs or something that was extensively dirty or folded in such a way that you know that it had been there for a while," Burick-Hughes said.
Burick-Hughes said many jobs in law enforcement will have to deal with crime scenes at least occasionally. She said that even if a student decides not to become a detective, he or she might have to gather evidence at a crime scene if a detective is not available.
"It's good for them," Burick-Hughes said. "They learn how to approach the scene, how to render it safe, how to go ahead and ... observe it, how to take photographs. At least now, when they go to the crime scene now they have to think, 'What do I have here, what do we need to do, what's the process?'"
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