The George J. Beto Criminal Justice Center is home to a number of prestigious institutes dedicated to the study of various subjects related to criminal justice, law enforcement, and corrections.
The Crime Victims’ Institute (CVI) was created in 1995 to study the impact of crime on victims and their relatives and on society as a whole. CVI also evaluates the effectiveness of criminal justice policy and juvenile justice policy in preventing the victimization of society by criminal acts and helps develop policies to assist the criminal justice system and the juvenile justice system in preventing the criminal victimization of society.
The Institute for Legal Studies in Criminal Justice (ILSCJ), sponsored by the SHSU College of Criminal Justice, aims to increase faculty mentorship on legal research and publication, identify and discuss pedagogical issues in the teaching of law in criminal justice programs, and to bridge the gap between academia and the field of criminal justice on issues related to law. ILSCJ also serves as an umbrella unit for coordinating the legal research and publications of faculty and students, as well as for exploring additional opportunities for legally oriented collaborative research.
The Institute for the Study of Violent Groups (ISVG) is a research institute dedicated to studying and tracking terrorist, extremist, and organized crime organizations throughout the world. Currently, ISVG is tracking more than 700 groups and 500 subgroups in more than 215 countries.
The Police Research Center (PRC) was created in 1993 as a part of the George J. Beto Criminal Justice Center. Of PRC’s many research endeavors, one of the largest is the Criminal Research, Information Management, and Evaluation System (CRIMES), a state-of-the-art police information management system. In cooperation with the Bill Blackwood Law Enforcement Management Institute of Texas (LEMIT), PRC produces the Texas Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics Program (TELEMASP) Bulletins and also coordinates its Executive Issues Major Cities Program.
The Survey Research Program (SRP) conducts surveys measuring citizen opinion on criminal justice issues both nationally and in the State of Texas. SRP’s primary project is the Texas Crime Poll, an annual survey that provides legislators, public officials, and citizens with a reliable source of information about Texas citizens’ opinions and attitudes concerning crime and criminal justice-related topics.
