For the past six years, Pasco Sheriff's Office under Sheriff Chris Nocco's leadership has teamed up with Dr. Bryanna Fox to collaborate on a variety of projects benefitting USF Criminology students and the local community. From implementing and evaluating offender profiles to help address unsolved burglaries with Major Jeff Peake, to collaborating on a major new study on the risks and needs of inmates in the Pasco County Jail alongside Major Stacy Jenkins, the Pasco Sheriff's Office has been the model partner agency to conduct impactful evidence-based research. Recently, Pasco Sheriff's Office and Dr. Fox were awarded a $700,000 grant from the U.S. Bureau of Justice Assistance to implement and evaluate a new focused deterrence strategy aimed at reducing violent crime and opioid related offenses in Pasco County. This grant will provide funding for several USF Criminology doctoral students.

Incredibly, Pasco Sheriff's Office also allowed Dr. Fox and graduate students in her Forensic Psychology seminar to help "investigate" a cold case homicide that has remained unsolved for the past 30 years. Graduate students in Dr. Fox's course learned the fundamentals of forensic psychology and applied their knowledge as they "worked" a cold case alongside detectives and crime analysts from Pasco Sheriff's Office. This once-in-a-lifetime experience allowed students to experience the challenges law enforcement commonly face when investigating crimes, particularly cold cases, and how criminological research can be used to help gain insights needed to solve the case. They read hundreds of pages of case files, visited the original crime scene, acted out the offense circumstances, learned from detectives and analysts, and spent hours after class working the case. Throughout the semester, Pasco Sheriff's Office was incredible in terms of the training, mentorship, and partnership they provided to USF Criminology students. Later, students in this course reported that this experience was one of the most beneficial and impactful they had in their academic careers, further illustrating the value of Pasco's contribution and collaboration with USF Criminology over the years.