Abstract
New technologies such as social media, smartphones, GPS, the internet, sensors, and virtual environments are quickly becoming an increasingly influential part of our daily lives. While very relevant, and often highly accessible and user-friendly, criminologists have been slow to capitalize on the research potential of these technologies. CRIME Lab is a research initiative that promotes the use of new technologies and innovative methods to do cutting-edge crime research. In this article, the author discusses three different CRIME Lab research projects that all make use of virtual reality (VR), which, it is argued, can become a highly useful research method for criminologists in the coming years. The author demonstrates how the use of VR in these projects allows for answering research questions that are hard to address using conventional methods.
