Victoria Sytsma
Associate Professor
PhD (Rutgers)
Sociology
Queen's University
Mackintosh-Corry Hall, D523
Office Hours By Appointment
- Applied Criminology
- Policy and Program Evaluation
- Canadian and American Policing
- Open-air drug markets
- Opportunity theories of crime
- Quantitative Data Analysis
Victoria is an applied criminologist who specializes in policy and program evaluation and quantitative data analysis. She has done evaluations in a wide range of areas, including student mentoring, police run organized-crime countermeasures, and juvenile offender reentry. She has published papers on open-air drug markets and municipal policing and often employs quantitative or mixed methods approaches.
Victoria has taught courses in data analysis, research methods, policing, immigration and crime, organized crime, and youth justice.
Victoria is actively seeking graduate students to undertake research in the areas of criminology, criminal justice program/policy evaluation, policing, drug markets, and opportunity theories of crime.
Victoria is a co-PI on a U.S. Department of Justice-funded project titled, Exploring Officer Patrol Behaviors Using Automated Vehicle Locator and Body-Worn Camera Data in Kansas City, Missouri.
Victoria is the PI on a SSHRC-funded study titled, An Investigation of the Toronto Police Service Body-Worn Camera Program.
Victoria is a co-PI on a SSHRC-funded study titled, Clandestine Drug Markets and the Methods, Motivations, and Harm Reduction Activities of Peptide Users.
Sytsma, V.A., Piza, E.L., & Henry, J. (Forthcoming). A quasi-experimental evaluation of staggered body-worn camera deployment.
Savannah A. Reid, Stephen Abeyta, Eric Piza, Nathan T. Connealy, Victoria A. Sytsma. (Forthcoming). AI vs. human transcription: Evaluating accuracy and meaning in police body-worn camera footage.
Sytsma, V.A. (2025). Vulnerable populations, crime, and a social justice and social impact agenda: Lessons for crime prevention [Special Issue: Crime Prevention for Social Impact and Social Justice]. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 714(1).
Sytsma, V.A. & Laming, E. (2024). Exploring the use of conducted energy weapons on subjects with a perceived mental condition. Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice.
Hsu, K., Emerick, B., Sytsma, V.A. (2024). Police personnel allocation and homicide clearance: An optimum analysis study [Special Issue: Police Staffing: Global Perspectives and Local Realities]. Policing: An International Journal, 47(5).
Sytsma, V.A., & Saulnier, A. (2024). The Impact of COVID-19 on Police Officer Wellness. Policing & Society.
Saulnier, A., & Sytsma, V. (2023). Body-worn camera videos and public perceptions of police: An experiment on positive video exposure and community-police relations. Policing & Society, 33(6), 626 642.
Piza, E.L., Connealy, N., Sytsma, V.A., & Chillar, V.F. (2023). Situational factors and police use of force across micro-time intervals: A video systematic social observation and panel regression analysis. Criminology, 61(1), 74-102.
Piza, E.L. & Sytsma, V.A. (2022). The impact of suspect resistance, informational justice, and interpersonal justice on time until police use of physical force: A survival analysis. Crime & Delinquency, 70(1), 3-28.
Sytsma, V.A., Laming, E., & Pohl, E. (2022). Situational and ecological predictors of conducted energy weapon application severity [Special Issue: Special Issue on Police Use of Force]. Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice, 64(1), 99-126.
Chillar, V.F., Piza, E.L., & Sytsma, V.A. (2021). Conducting systematic social observations of body-camera footage: Methodological and practical insights. The Journal of Qualitative Criminal Justice and Criminology.
Sytsma, V.A., Piza, E.L., Chillar, V.F. , & Grossman, L. (2021). Measuring procedural justice policy adherence during use of force events: The body-worn camera as a performance monitoring tool. Criminal Justice Policy Review 32(9), 938-959.
Sytsma, V.A., Chillar, V.F., & Piza, E.L. (2021). Scripting police escalation of use of force through conjunctive analysis of body-worn camera footage: A systematic social observational pilot study. Journal of Criminal Justice, 74.
Sytsma, V.A., Connealy, N., & Piza, E.L. (2021). Environmental predictors of a drug offender crime script: A systematic social observation of Google Street View images and CCTV footage. Crime & Delinquency, 67(1), 27-57. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0011128720910961