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PEOPLE OF INTEREST
The
Criminology
Professor
BY SUE-ELLEN SANDERS
PHOTO BY ROBERT P. DUDLEY
Rachel Boba wants to change the world of policing one
police department at a time. She’s already begun her
work in Port St. Lucie where she sought and received
a grant to help the Port St. Lucie Police track and analyze
trends in crime, beginning in 2003.
Her first success story was tracking the burglaries on construction
sites that swept Port St. Lucie in 2004 and 2005.
“With over 6,000 homes being built in a year over a large
land area, it was impossible for the police to be driving by
each construction site every night,” Boba says. “But, once the
police started to track and analyze the sites that were burglarized
and spot trends, we were able to educate the
builders and warn them which behaviors would lead to further
crime.”
In the past four years, the crime analyst and criminology
professor has worked with Port St. Lucie police, funded in
part by a federal grant. She helped them begin their Crime
Analysis Department and hire their own analysts. And since
last May, Boba has also worked with the Fort Pierce Police
Department. “It’s all about bringing analysis into police
departments in routine ways, to help officers respond more
effectively to crimes and solve their problems in a manner
that establishes a system of priority.”
As an assistant professor in the criminology department at
Florida Atlantic University’s Treasure Coast Campus in Port
St. Lucie, Boba teaches criminal justice students everything
from methods of research, crime prevention and problem
solving, to how to use analysis in the field of policing.
From 2000 to 2003, Boba was director of the Police
Foundation's Crime Mapping Laboratory where she directed
federally funded grants in the areas of crime analysis
and crime mapping, problem analysis, and school safety.
Prior to her position at the Police Foundation, she worked
as a crime analyst at the Tempe, Ariz., Police Department
for five years where she conducted a wide variety of crime
analysis and crime mapping work as well as applied
research and evaluation.
Today, many of Boba’s students go into fields like corrections
and pre-law, and it’s her mission to make sure they are
aware of how analysis can make their
jobs more efficient. At the same time,
her consulting with local police department
helps change the way they view
the collection of data.
“In the field of police work, things
happen so quickly, it’s hard to take the
time to analyze,” Boba says. “If we
streamline the data given based on
what’s needed, then the information
will be used.”
Name: Rachel Boba
Age: 38
Birthplace:
Chicago
Education: Boba
received her
Ph.D. and MA in
sociology from
Arizona State University and her BA in
English and sociology from California
Lutheran University
Occupation: Assistant Professor,
Criminology,
Florida Atlantic University, St. Lucie
West Campus
What people don’t know about me: “I
played basketball from the age of 9,
competing on the boys’ team in junior
high, because the school didn’t have a
girls’ team. As a teen, I dreamed of
going to college on a basketball scholarship
to college, and I did.”
What inspires me: “I love to help make things better in
other people’s lives and in the community. Teaching others
to do the same is inspiring to me.”
Proudest achievements: “Getting my PhD at age 27, writing
my first book and running the Marine Corp Marathon.”
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