WEST LIBERTY, W.Va., March 3, 2020 — West Liberty University is now the owner of a one story home, located along Rt. 88, that will enhance the student experience for criminal justice majors. The newly purchased house is not a dorm but a house that will be used as a criminal justice lab.
“This has been a goal of mine since 2011. We had a house lined up that we thought we might get but we lost it. So the department has been using small spaces on campus to create crime scenes as necessary,” said Dr. Keith Bell, program director. “We couldn’t do anything elaborate with crime scenes because we couldn’t show the whole picture.”
The addition of the crime scene house to the department means the program will be able to introduce more hands-on experience and give students an edge that will help as they prepare for their professions.
“This isn’t typical for most programs but we want hands-on training and this space addresses the student request that we’ve heard from many — to provide more active, hands-on experience,” Bell said.
Many of the students are planning on careers in state or federal law enforcement or even the FBI. A new adjunct professor will be joining campus soon to teach one of the crime scene classes and he has first hand experience with active shooters, added Bell.
Students with a criminal justice major or minor will be able to take a class starting in spring 2021 which involves a practical focus on crime scene investigation.
“Our criminal justice society is in the process of making it accessible and staging the interior,” noted Bell. “It is a really old house, so it kind of already looks like a crime scene.”
With a variety of rooms in the house, the possibilities of scenarios to recreate are endless.
“We could do a breaking and entering, a murder, a drug scene, a drug house … you name it and we could put it on,” said Bell. This will provide a useful experience for students and will attract prospective students.
“The College of Liberal Arts is working on an event for the fall where juniors and seniors from high schools will visit to see all we offer. When it comes to the CJ part, they can actually stage a demonstration now.”
There will be two classes taking advantage of the crime scene house. The first is a prerequisite that will always be offered in the fall and will cover important investigative concepts. The second, criminal investigations, will be offered in the spring. This course will be a more practical investigative experience taught by a former federal agent with extensive crime scene experience. About 13 weeks of class will be spent in the crime scene house.
The criminal justice society on campus is also aiming to make use of the house to aid the work they do within the community. One idea involved creating an escape room and giving the proceeds to domestic violence charities in the area. The crime scene house will be available to the society in the spring when the criminal investigations class is not running.
In order to get the house staged, the criminal justice society and department are asking for donations of furniture to set up the seven rooms. To donate furniture or for more information on the criminal justice program, please contact Bell by email at keith.bell@westliberty.edu.
Criminal Justice is a program within the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences in WLU’s College of Liberal Arts, led by Dean Gerard NeCastro. WLU also has an online graduate degree in Criminology.