About the Crime Scene House
Located at our Geelong Waurn Ponds Campus, the Crime Scene House is a training space developed to mimic a normal house environment that can be incorporated into a simulated crime scene. It comprises a lounge area, bedrooms, kitchen and bathroom and extends to an outdoor area with a car and garden.
The house can be staged with different types of simulations that are typical of real-world crime scenes such as murders and drug laboratories. Students are able to search the house to document the crime and collect related evidence – just as they would working in the real world. Students also interact with simulated elements forensic investigators are often confronted with, including bodily fluids, blood, fingerprints, fibres and weapons that replicate real-life scenarios as closely as possible.
The space is also used for our outreach programs, research purposes and is available to our industry partners for training and development.
Equipment and technology
The Crime Scene House includes:
- simulated rooms and zones
- furniture and other incidental objects such as cutlery and crockery
- typical household items, including food products and containers, magazines, towels
- crime objects such as bullet casings and weapons
- post-crime aspects such as simulated blood, other fluids or live maggots
- cameras set up in every room so students can be viewed remotely
- virtual 360° imaging of crime scenes for first-year students to search the house online.
Research use
Our staff, PhD candidates and honours students use the house to conduct research, including projects investigating bloodstain pattern analysis, DNA transfer and the persistence of fingerprints on objects.
Research is also conducted in collaboration with the Victoria Police Forensic Services department to ensure that our research teaching and training continues to replicate what is performed in real life.
Study with us
Deakin offers study and research options across a range of bachelor, masters and higher degree by research courses in forensic science.
Our undergraduate course is professionally accredited by the Chartered Society of Forensic Sciences – giving you the formal training essential to modern forensic science. Deakin is the first university in Australia and the only university in the Asia-Pacific region to offer professionally accredited forensic sciences courses.