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This chapter seeks to help and support online educators in their efforts to improve tomorrow. Specifically, the chapter shares practical strategies and tools that online educators can easily apply, adapt, and/or personalize in order to help promote a mindfully multicultural classroom in their online classrooms and programs. The chapter includes a wide range of actionable tools and exercises to help online instructors optimize the learning experience for all students by building upon the unique strengths and diverse cultural backgrounds of all students in their online classrooms. The strategies help instructors leverage diversity as a means to promote equity and social justice in online programs and, ultimately, the world as a whole. The chapter relies upon Gollnick and Chinn’s (2017) six beliefs that are fundamental to multicultural education and presents strategies from two perspectives or lenses (student-focused and faculty-focused). Approaching the issue from a dual-sided lens is intended to best support the ultimate goal of improving the student learning experience. Emphasis is placed on both public and private interactions between faculty and students. Public interactions include all discussion board and announcement communications. Public interactions also include resources that are shared in the online classroom for all students’ benefit.

The purpose of this study is to outline the specific details and lessons learned during a cold case collaborative effort, which granted graduate students and a professor from the University of South Florida the opportunity to assist Pasco Sheriff’s Office in the investigation of a cold case homicide.

The collaboration between law enforcement and academics is a new and emerging strategy to investigate cold cases and identify the elusive offenders who committed these crimes. Such collaboration aids law enforcement by obtaining a force multiplier for investigative resources, accessing cutting-edge evidence-based research and cultivating innovative approaches to their work. For academics, such collaboration allows the unique opportunity to engage in translational criminology, which is an important and increasingly encouraged aspect of the field.

In this paper, the authors provide an overview of the process used to study this cold case as part of an experiential academic course, provide evidence-based research findings relevant to cold case investigations and outline the steps for others to replicate the efforts.

The authors describe in detail the process used to “work” the cold case, academic research that the authors found useful in understanding and investigating cold cases, important lessons learned and advice for future academics and practitioners who undertake an incredible collaborative effort such as this.

Criminology both as a field of study and as a practice draws on a broad range of disciplines from the social, behavioural, human, natural and medical sciences. However, over recent times, the natural and medical sciences have been dismissed, overlooked and even ridiculed, largely since the rise of critical criminology and related contemporary conflict and social harm approaches from the 1960s onwards. This has led to a chasm emerging between the study of criminology and the practice of criminology such as within a policing context. This paper aims to provide a review of an emerging forensic biological method, that of neuroscience, within a criminological context, to illustrate the importance of criminology embracing and reawakening its natural and medical science roots.

The paper draws on a conceptual design to realign criminology with the full range of disciplines used to inform its theory and application.

Through illustrating the role of forensic neuroscience, the paper reawakens the scientific method and inquiry of criminology reflecting the importance of the discipline being, and remaining, multi- and trans-disciplinary in nature. The paper, while reflecting on the limitations of scientific method and inquiry, outlines the strengths this approach to criminology engenders, promoting and delivering a scientific-based research agenda that aims to support industry partners in the prevention, disruption and reduction of crime, disorder and threats to public security.

Firstly, it is important for criminology as a field of study to (re)engage with its scientific method and inquiry. Secondly, criminology, by engaging in robust scientific method and inquiry, has a significant contribution to make to professional practice and the work of industry professionals. Thirdly, while there are limitations to such scientific method and inquiry, it should not lead to this component of criminology being discarded. Fourthly, there is a need for contemporary research in the area of scientific method and inquiry and its application to criminological contexts, including that of police practice. Finally, by engaging in scientific method and inquiry that is evidence based, a chasm between the field of study and the practice associated with criminology can be addressed.

This paper addresses the gap between criminology as a field of study and as a practice by reengaging with scientific method and inquiry, illustrating the need and value of criminology being and remaining multi- and trans-disciplinary, ensuring professions underpinned by criminology are supported in their practice.

Empirical research suggests that traffic enforcement is the most common type of proactive activity police officers engage in on a daily basis. Further, agencies often use traffic enforcement to achieve both traffic safety and crime control. Given these goals, the purpose of this paper is to investigate whether (and to what extent) officers are accurately targeting their proactive traffic enforcement with crime and vehicle crashes in two agencies.

The study examines traffic enforcement patterns in two agencies to see whether proactive traffic enforcement aligns spatially with crime and vehicle crashes. This study employs negative binomial regression models with clustered standard errors to investigate this alignment at the micro-spatial level. Key variables of interest are measured with police calls for service data, traffic citation data and vehicle crash data from two law enforcement jurisdictions.

High levels of spatial association are observed between traffic accidents and crime in both agencies, lending empirical support to the underlying theories of traffic enforcement programs that also try to reduce crime (i.e. “DDACTS”). In both agencies, traffic accidents also appear to be the most prominent predictor of police proactive traffic enforcement activities, even across different times of day. However, when vehicle crashes are accounted for, the association between crime and traffic stops is weaker, even during times of day when agencies believe they are using proactive traffic enforcement as a crime deterrent.

No prior study to authors knowledge has examined the empirical association between police proactive traffic activities and crime and traffic accidents in practice. The current study seeks to fill that void by investigating the realities of traffic stops as practiced daily by police officers, and their alignment with crime and vehicle crashes. Such empirical inquiry is especially important given the prevalent use of traffic enforcement as a common proactive policing tool by police agencies to control both traffic and crime problems.

A considerable amount of police evaluation research focuses on innovative approaches to reduce crime at places. This is hardly coincidental; policing and place-based scholars have found crime is highly concentrated, and when police focus on these places, they can prevent and reduce crime. The regularity of such findings led Weisburd (2015) to assert the existence of a “law of crime concentration.” Given that bold assertion, the authors test whether the law of crime concentration is generalizable to one of the most common public safety concerns that police handle—traffic crashes.

To determine whether the law of crime concentration applies to traffic crashes, the authors examined crash locations and times in all counties in Utah across four years. Following and expanding on Weisburd's methods, the authors calculate the bandwidth of concentration for these crashes and analyze various types by severity and possible explanations for variations in crash concentrations across the state.

A small proportion of street segments and intersections experience a disproportionately high number of crashes, and the degree of concentration of crashes may be even higher than that of crime. Further, there are variations in the levels of crash concentration across counties and in the severity of injuries resulting from the crashes.

Place-based criminologists and policing scholars have not often explored traffic crashes in their analyses. Yet, traffic problems take up a significant amount of law enforcement time and resources and are often priorities for most law enforcement agencies. Given what the authors know from traffic, policing and crime and place research, targeted approaches at micro traffic crash hot spots can be beneficial for public safety prevention.

This study is the first to explore the application of Weisburd's Law of Crime Concentration to traffic crashes. Given that police spend a significant amount of time and resources on traffic-related problems in their jurisdiction, finding more effective, evidence-based approaches to address this public safety concern should be a high priority for police and researchers alike.

The importance of body-worn cameras (BWC) in policing cannot be overstated. This is not a hyperbolic statement – use of force incidents in Ferguson and Baltimore, the ensuing riots, coupled with critical long term implications for police community relations demonstrate the need for BWC data. Few studies have been published on the use of BWCs and little is known about officer perceptions, administrator decision making, and agency use of BWC data. No published studies incorporate qualitative data, which lends important context and depth, in the interpretation of officer survey data. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The current study presents a mixed-method study of a large university police agency prior to full implementation of BWC. A survey of patrol officers and supervisors, using a census approach with near full participation, coupled with focus group interviews, produced data on perceptions, concerns, and expectations of full BWC implementation.

Findings point to officer concerns regarding the utilization of BWC data and administrative expectations regarding complaint reduction and officer assessment.

Important implications regarding training and policy are presented. BWC data represent an important tool for agency decision makers but have numerous potential negative uses. Understanding officer concerns juxtaposed with administrator expectations, through both survey and qualitative data, advance the knowledge on BWC.

Response to suggestion that EU-wide cash payment limits would assist in the control of terrorism finance and money laundering.

Desk review and interviews

The inception impact assessment (IIA) is ill-conceived, not grounded on firm empirical evidence and harmful to both crime control and the legitimate interests and rights of the EU citizens. The action under discussion is presented as a measure against terrorism finance, serious crime and tax evasion. The problem is that these criminal acts correspond to very different methods, volumes, perpetrators, causes and control challenges. Cash payment limitations (CPLs) are nowhere near a panacea that can address all of them and cannot make any of them go away magically. Even when each of these crime challenges are considered on their own, the empirical linkage of CPLs to effective controls is not there. The evidence from EU countries with CPLs in place shows higher levels of informal economy, corruption, tax evasion and terrorism risks than those without. There is substantial evidence of non-cash, very serious and organized crime, while the amounts needed and used by terrorists in Europe are usually very small in cash transactions, way below the thresholds under consideration. In fact, determined offenders will shift to other methods and become more sophisticated, posing new problems to controllers. Displacement and incentives for better-organized crime may well be the main products of such measures.

It counters the argument that the cash payment limits can help reduce serious crime, while pointing to several adverse consequences on legitimate interests and human rights.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is increasingly considered a central tenant of marketing strategy and a source of competitive advantage within the retail sector. As such, it may affect a supermarket’s customer, employee, and other stakeholder attitudes and behaviours. This research explores how a supermarket’s involvement in CSR activities may influence employee engagement and how this may manifest itself in positive employee behaviours. Specifically, the purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the role of CSR and its impact on employee engagement and consequently, employee propensity to exhibit intervention behaviours to prevent in-store retail crime.

This research uses a phenomenological approach through semi-structured in-depth interviews with shop-floor employees of a national supermarket chain.

Findings suggest that external and internal CSR practices of supermarkets are important in shaping organisational engagement behaviours among employees. Additionally, heightened employee engagement may have a significant impact on employee propensity to engage in shoplifting prevention behaviours. A conceptual model is developed based on these findings.

Retail managers should fully communicate CSR practices to employees to increase employee engagement and consequential shoplifting intervention prevention behaviours.

The contribution of this paper is twofold. First and from a theoretical perspective, it offers both a conceptual foundation and empirical-based evaluation of CSR and its impact on employee engagement and specifically, shoplifting prevention behaviours. Second and from a pragmatic perspective, the conceptual model derived from this research may aid retailers in developing and communicating CSR strategies that engage employees and consequently lead to shoplifting prevention behaviours.