SUNY Erie’s North Campus Crime Museum Offers Experiential Learning for Criminal Justice Students

The SUNY Erie Community College Crime and Punishment Museum, located at the North Campus in Bretschger Hall, room 709, offers an immersive look into the chapters of criminal history. The unique museum supports student success as it serves as an educational resource to promote discussion on crime, justice, and public safety issues.

Since its opening in 2018, the museum, originally a chemistry storage room, has grown into an extensive collection of authentic crime-related artifacts. Accompanied by detailed accounts of murders, serial offenders, prisoner escapes, and organized crime, the exhibits provide the SUNY Erie community, students, and visitors with a rare opportunity to explore the complex intersection of law, history, and human behavior.

This academic initiative, developed through collaboration between SUNY Erie’s faculty and student interns, supports its mission to engage students in ways that offer learning and recruitment opportunities.

Believed to be the only crime museum housed on a college campus in the nation, it features an especially unique collection of Buffalo and Western New York-specific crime artifacts and inside information. These include materials connected to high-profile local cases, Buffalo-area serial killers, organized regional crime, and historical law enforcement stories that cannot be found anywhere else. This local focus allows students to explore how crime and justice have shaped the character, history, and culture.

The museum offers exhibits that support the SUNY Erie Criminal Justice and Police Academy programs, providing significant value to student learning. Students gain insight into investigative processes, historical context, crime scene documentation, and the evolution of crime and justice, complementing coursework in Intro to Criminal Justice, Crime Scene Technology, Criminal Law, Criminal Justice Ethics, Criminology, Intro to Corrections, and internship experiences.

On display, SUNY Erie students constructed replicas of historical execution devices and a human skull, and curated exhibits featuring crime scene photographs, wanted posters, weapons and a wide range of criminal justice and law-related collectibles. Additional displays include law enforcement agency patches from around the world, furniture, police and SWAT equipment, prison inmate artifacts, riot control gear and drug-related paraphernalia. The museum also features a lending library, straitjackets, film posters, and equipment used in crime scene investigation and forensic processing, among others.

Maintaining strong connections with the community and police alumni, the museum is supported through active collaboration with SUNY Erie Criminal Justice faculty and students.

The Criminal Justice program faculty gratefully acknowledge the support and donated items provided by members of the Buffalo Police Department, Department of Scotland Yard for Metropolitan Police (England), Erie County Police Training Academy, Erie County Sheriff’s Office, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Lancaster Police Department, New York State Department of Corrections, New York State Police, Niagara Falls Police Department, SUNY Erie Campus Safety, United States Marshals Service and others.

Open to the public and currently seeking volunteer docents, SUNY Erie invites the public to tour the exhibits. Tours are available during hours and by appointment. Museum hours are Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2:30 to 4 p.m. during the fall and spring semesters. For information, please contact Criminal Justice Professor Gerald J. Gill, Jr. at gill@ecc.edu or at (716) 270-5286