2024-2025 Course List

This course explores topics in criminal justice beyond what is covered in the existing curriculum. Students study specialized topics of current importance in the field. Specific topics will change depending on the term and instructor. May be retaken with a change of topic.

This course provides an overview of descriptive and inferential statistical methods as applied in criminal justice research. Students will learn about common sources of criminal justice system data and will learn about a variety of techniques used to understand outcomes and relationships within criminal justice system processes. Students will learn how to apply statistical techniques and use their understanding of these techniques to make meaning and draw conclusions about the extent & nature of offending, disparities in criminal justice system processes and the effectiveness of criminal justice system intervention. Students will use computer software to organize and analyze data.

This course provides students with an overview of quantitative methods in investigating crime patterns and crime prevention. Measurement, conceptualization and operationalization will be reviewed, and students will apply their understanding of theory to analyze valid measures of concepts. Students will apply sources of official criminal statistics and alternative data sources for the purposes of description, evaluation, and explanation, and will articulate their limitations. While quasi-experimental research designs will be emphasized, students will learn about several common research designs. Validity, and the limitations of research designs and methods with respect to inferences about causality and generalizability are central to the course.

A seminar in criminological theory construction and testing, and contemporary research supporting the main theories of crime causation: psychological, social structural, conflict/critical, feminist/queer, and postmodern. Some attention will be paid to the development of crime prevention strategies and rehabilitation interventions.

Students will learn about the theories of organizational behavior and administration as applied to the management of criminal justice organizations. The course will focus on current management trends and issues and how these challenges are addressed by those in organizational leadership positions. This will involve case studies of successes and failures in real world situations. Students will be required to critically examine these cases and analyze why failures occurred and why success was achieved in other situations.

Crime and the fear of crime rank as one of the most important issues in society today. As a result, public policymakers and administrators in the criminal justice system are responding to the issue of crime by fundamentally reviewing all facets of conventional criminal justice infrastructure such as approaches to policing, adjudication, sentencing, imprisonment, and community corrections.

The course will provide students with an understanding of the legal issues that criminal justice practitioners encounter. Students will analyze these issues by identifying relevant facts and legal doctrine, and then develop strategies to resolve them.

Planning provides leaders and managers with a process for making organizational decisions and directing an organization's actions. Budgeting presents information on funding and accountability. Planning and budgeting are integral responsibilities for any criminal justice manager.

Students will examine current issues and problems facing criminal justice organizations related to the development, implementation, and evaluation of public policy. This includes a study of the development of policies regulating police, courts, and corrections. The course will provide an analysis of contemporary issues confronting criminal justice personnel to include, issues surrounding the use of discretion in the field, the use of force, and changes in the delivery of services.

Students will examine leadership skills in criminal justice organizations. Topics that will be explored include organizational communication, conflict resolution, decision-making, problem solving, and their relationship to organizational culture and effective leadership practices. Students will examine the role of leadership in building relationships with employees and the challenge of power dynamics in those relationships. Practical problem solving and decision-making skills will be practiced.

Correctional interventions are theory-based programs that address the criminogenic needs of a juvenile or adult correctional client. This course will cover the main correctional need evaluation through testing or interviews, and effective interventions for the most common criminogenic needs, as well as substance abuse and mental illness. Strategies for adapting interventions to community corrections, adult prisons, and juvenile detention centers are discussed.

This course will focus on United States' complex role with race/ethnicity and social control by addressing the historical context and the contemporary issues relevant to understanding race, crime, and social control. To this aim, we examine the historical context of race and what it means now and what it has meant to us in the past. By answering this initial race question, we will evaluate the historical, social, and political evolution of this term. We will examine the intersection between race, crime, and social control in the United States.

This course traces women's participation in crime and crime victimization from the 19th century to the present, including theories of women's delinquency and crime, disparities in the criminal justice process, and the history of women's prisons and other correctional institutions. Theories of women's crime and victimization will be evaluated through the intersection of gender with other identity categories, such as race/ethnicity, social class, and sexual identity. Although the American criminal justice system will be emphasized, some attention will be paid to the transnational drug trade, human trafficking, and terrorism.

Police effectiveness implies the degree to which policing accomplishes its formally defined goals Traditionally, police effectiveness has been measured by data related to crime prevention and the detection and punishment of offenders. However, today, police effectiveness has become progressively complex due to the multi-faceted nature of policing services.

This course will focus on communication and leadership during crisis situations in a criminal justice agency. The crisis situations will include internal, as well as external crises, and will address internal and external communications and leadership. This course will focus on interagency cooperation, planning, communication, public policy, and leadership.

Emergency management has been spotlighted in the public after several natural and man-made disasters, however, the principles and responsibilities of emergency management may not be clear. This course will help define the role of criminal justice professionals and leadership in delivering more immediate and detailed coordinated emergency services, while navigating public opinion and politics.

An advanced, in-depth study of a particular topical area or controversial issue designed to examine the history, development, current practices, critical issues, and/or the future of the subject matter for our criminal justice system. Both practical and theoretical approaches to the current research of the topical area or contentious issue may be investigated. Topics will vary.

Critically review and evaluate secondary research sources for the development of a thorough, extensive, and academic orientation to a criminal justice related problem. The evaluation and analysis of the research must provide sufficient background for the student to draw and summarize sound conclusions, highlight strengths and weaknesses of the data, develop alternative resolutions to the research problem, and identify directions for future research. This is a capstone option for the M.S. Degree in Criminal Justice.

Professional Portfolio is a capstone course that demonstrates a reflective record of professional growth over time and serves as a showcase for samples of best work at a given time in the student's criminal justice career.

This course provides a capstone opportunity for the completion of a Professional Project. The intent of a Professional project is to identify, research, and develop a project that addresses a current critical issue in the field of criminal justice.

Field placement with a criminal justice agency or related organization that provides a learning experience in which the student can integrate and apply knowledge and theory derived from curriculum. Can only be taken P/N, must have permission to register.

Advanced study and research on topics not currently available in existing courses. Requires advisor and instructor approval of topic.

The Construction Experience course is one step toward building a future in the management of projects for the built environment. This course inspires students to explore opportunities within the diverse construction industry under the guidance and approval of the course instructor.

Overview of academic preparation and career opportunities in the field of Construction Management. Skills needed for estimating, scheduling, project management and field supervision will be previewed with an emphasis on future trends in the industry.

Emphasis on plan reading, basic sketching and drawing techniques, graphic vocabulary, detail hierarchies, scale, content, notes and specifications, reference conventions, computer applications.