The Hawai‘i Crime Lab (PI: Dr. Ashley Rubin) uses social science to help Hawai‘i’s citizens and policymakers better understand crime and punishment. We strive for objective, non-partisan analyses and insights.
- We engage in “translational criminology” by providing context for what residents and visitors see in the news and by highlighting what cutting-edge social science has to say about criminal justice.
- We support “citizen criminology” in which citizens can use criminological knowledge in their own lives, while reading the news, walking through their neighborhoods, or enjoying this beautiful ʻāina.
- Finally, we provide experiential learning for our students who can learn and practice data collection and analysis, critical thinking skills, and effective oral and written communication.
We currently focus on three areas of inquiry:
Students!
We are recruiting! Learn more here!
Resources
Find recommended books, academic journal articles, criminal justice resources in Hawai‘i, and links to local news sites here.
An archive of externally published Crime Lab productions can be found here.
Stay Tuned…
The Crime Lab soft launched in fall 2024 and launched more fully in spring 2025, so we are still incubating parts of the lab. In the coming years, we hope to expand the Crime Lab and we will be seeking funding to do so.
We are currently in “phase one” where we start small by focusing on setting up some baseline activities that we can do regularly and do well. As these activities become solidified, we will continue to add to our plate.
In “phase two,” we hope to host a speaker series to invite community leaders to campus to tell us what they want people to know about crime and punishment in Hawaii and how academic researchers can help!
In “phase three,” we hope to continue the speaker series, this time bringing in academic experts to share their research on areas of interest for Hawai‘i.
Community Partners
How can we be (more) useful? We welcome input and inquiries from the community, including journalists and our state’s decisionmakers. We are here to help if we can.
Currently, we seek to answer basic questions of fact that either we have ourselves as residents of O‘ahu or that we see interest in, either from news coverage or in talking with folks around the Island.
We distinguish between questions of fact and questions of policy. Questions of fact can be answered by careful analyses of data. Questions of policy are harder as they often depend on morality as well as our understanding of the world. For example, we can offer suggestions about what policies more effectively deter crime, but whether a given policy should be adopted depends on many factors, including cost and whether deterrence is a sufficient justification for policy.
Thus, we are available to analyze data or perform other kinds of research (e.g., bibliographic), but we generally avoid taking positions on what one *should* do with the data. Instead, we try to focus on what the data say in order to inform people’s decisions, but we leave it to decisionmakers (individuals, practitioners, policymakers) to decide what to do.
To get in touch, please contact Dr. Ashley Rubin.
Hawaii Crime Lab
The Hawaii Crime Lab 