Undergraduate Course Descriptions & Syllabi

Undergraduate Courses |
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47:202:102 : Criminology (3 credits) This course introduces an examination of the field of criminology. Major topics include definitions of, and the basic assumptions that are used to formulate, criminological theories. Causes of crime and crime rates, United States and international comparisons, and a review of the current direction of research within the study of crime also discussed. Required Course – B.S. Course Learning Goals:
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47:202:103 : Introduction to Criminal Justice (3 credits) This course introduces the study of societal responses to crime as well as an explanation of why criminal justice should be thought of as a system are covered in this course. Specific topics include the study of the people and organizations that make up the criminal justice system including actors such as the police, prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges, and corrections officials. Major branches and functions of the criminal justice system including law enforcement and order maintenance, courts and sentencing, and corrections and reentry are covered. Required Course – B.S. Course Learning Goals:
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47:202:104 : Cutting Edge of Criminology (3 credits) This course features the academic research of faculty members and other active researchers and policymakers involved in the local, national, and international criminal justice scenes present their work to, and field questions from, students. Students are offered the opportunity to interact with criminal justice stakeholders and gain knowledge about cutting edge research within the fields of criminology and criminal justice. Course Learning Goals:
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47:202:203 : Police and Society (3 credits) The course examines the function of police in contemporary society; the problems arising between citizens and police from the enforcement and non-enforcement of laws are covered in this course. The mechanisms by which social changes impact the law enforcement and order maintenance functions of the police , interactions between the public and the police, and how these interactions impact police legitimacy are major topics that will be discussed. Course Learning Goals:
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47:202:204 : Corrections (3 credits) This course examines and analyzes the major types of custodial and community‐based criminal corrections in the United States of America. Discusses the origins, purposes, actors and actions, and consequences of the United States’ corrections system and its’ subsystems. Specific topics include an in-depth analysis of the functions of institutional corrections like prisons and jails, as well as community corrections like probation and parole. Contemporary theories guiding corrections including retribution, deterrence, incapacitation, and rehabilitation are discussed. Course Learning Goals:
47-202-204 Corrections Fall 20 (Rengifo)
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47:202:220 : Reducing Local Crime (3 credits) When urban governments and quasi‐governmental activities do their jobs well, they can greatly reduce various types of crime. This course relates urban design and management to crime and crime reduction. Specific topics include public violence, abandonment, littering, public drunkenness, environmental degradation, safe parks, secure streets and campuses, robberies, teen hangouts, outdoor drug markets, and more. The course is presented through the critical lens of problem oriented policing, routine activity analysis, and situational crime prevention to reducing local crime. Course Learning Goals:
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47:202:221 : Case Processing: The Law and the Courts (3 credits) This course explores criminal laws and judicial opinions that influence the policies, procedures, personnel, and clients of the criminal justice system in the United States. Specific topics include, but are not limited to, the origin, development, and continuing changes in criminal law, administration of criminal justice, and the criminal courts. Course Learning Goals:
(47:202:221:01) CASE PROCESSING, LAW, & COURT Fall 20 (Pratt) |
47:202:222 : Constitutional Issues in Criminal Justice (3 credits) This course examines the practices and procedures of the United States of America through the application and critical analysis of the nation’s Constitution. Particular attention is paid to how the Bill of Rights is interpreted by courtroom actors, and how this interpretation results in the setting of precedence. Discussion of how constitutional precedence reverberates in the criminal justice policymaking world, as well as specific analyses of important judicial opinions, trials, and congressional investigations are covered in this course. Course Learning Goals:
202:222: Constitutional Issues in Criminal Justice Fall 20 (Lageson) |
47:202:223 : Delinquency and Juvenile Justice (3 credits) This course explores the causes and rates of delinquent behavior. Investigates the nature and operation of the juvenile justice system, and provides comparisons between the purpose and functioning of the juvenile justice system in comparison to the adult criminal justice system. Issues of juvenile waiver to adult courts, important due process safeguards afforded to juveniles, and international comparisons are discussed. Course Learning Goals:
47-202-223 Delinquency and Juvenile Justice Fall 20 (Sullivan) |
47:202:224 : Community Corrections (3 credits) This course examines the theory and practice of major community‐based correctional responses (such as probation, parole, and diversion programs) to convicted criminal offenders are explored in this course. Discussions centering on why community corrections is an important social movement, and the countermovement to abolish the parole function, are offered in this course. Course Learning Goals:
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47:202:225 : Criminal Justice: Ethical and Philosophical Foundations (3 credits) This course explores ethical and philosophical issues and moral dilemmas within the field of criminal justice, including principles of justice, deontology and utilitarianism, philosophical issues in sentencing, police and ethics, ethics and research, and the scope of state control are discussed in this course. Course Learning Goals:
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47:202:301 : Criminal Justice Research Methods (3 credits; formerly 4 credits) This course develops the tools needed for conducting research and writing reports and scholarly papers in criminal justice. Students that take this course will become informed consumers of criminological research, and gain the tools to conduct their own basic research projects. Specific topics include the primacy of design, principles of reliability and validity, sampling theory, survey preparation, and the differences between, and strengths and detriments of, experimental and quasi-experimental designs. Required Course – B.S., B.A. Course Learning Goals:
CJ301: Criminal Justice Research Methods Fall 20 (Wakefield) 202:301:60:01Criminal Justice Research Methods Fall 20 (Joel Miller) |
47:202:302 : Data Analysis in Criminal Justice (3 credits; formerly 4 credits) This course examines the various types of data used within criminal justice and the fundamentals of statistics and analysis. Provides an analysis of the appropriate use of data, the limits of various methods, how data is collected, and how to interpret findings. Policy implications of data will also be discussed. Prerequisite: 21:62:202:301 and the basic undergraduate math requirement. Required Course – B.S., B.A. Course Learning Goals:
47-202-302 Data Analysis in Criminal Justice Fall 20 (Silver) 47:202:302:02: Data Analysis in Criminal Justice Fall 20 (Baćak) |
47:202:312 : Comparative Criminal Justice Systems (3 credits) This course provides a worldwide overview of cultural and legal traditions related to crime. This worldview is used to fuel discussions about different approaches to law enforcement, criminal procedure and criminal law, corrections, and juvenile justice across different locations and cultures. Course Learning Goals:
47:202:312: Comparative Criminal Justice Systems FAll 20 (Baćak) |
47:202:313 : Gender, Crime & Justice (3 credits) This course provides an in‐depth survey of changing social values about gender, changing criminal codes about sex crimes, changing law enforcement policies and procedures in prosecuting sex offenders, and emerging legal doctrines about privacy and sexual rights. Course Learning Goals:
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47:202:323 : Cybercrime (3 credits) This course examines the cybercrime, its prevention, and its significance for law enforcement. These types of crimes include illicit attacks on personal computers, on computer systems, on people via computers, and more. They include theft of information via computers, spreading of harmful code, and stealing credit and other information. Particular discussions about the level of technical proficiency that is used by cybercriminals are covered in this course. Course Learning Goals:
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47:202:324 : Violent Crime (3 credits) This course provides an in‐depth analysis of the relationship between violence and criminal behavior. It assesses the theoretical basis of violence by investigating its anthropological, biological, and sociological explanations and roots. Students that take this course will be involved in investigations of how and why violence occurs within the contexts of individuals, groups, and societies. Course Learning Goals:
47: 202: 324: 01 Violent Crime Fall 20 (Keller)
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47:202:333 : Race and Crime (3 credits) This course examines how race is related to offending, victimization, and various interactions with the criminal justice system. The course considers how race is defined at societal-, cultural-, and individual-levels, how these definitions are malleable, and how this impacts criminal justice policy. Explanations and explorations behind disproportionate minority contact and representation in the United States’ criminal justice system are discussed in this course. Course Learning Goals:
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47:202:342Q : Contemporary Policing (3 credits) This course covers various topics that are considered to be critical law enforcement problems. Specific areas of inquiry include how to police organized crime, alcohol and drugs, the policing of civil and natural disturbances, and the diffusion and multiplicity of police agencies. Discussion of issues within crime reporting by the police, assessment difficulties, and public reactions to law enforcement and order maintenance strategies used by the police are covered in this course. Administrative problems of staffing, supervision, employee morale and militancy, and public charges are also critically discussed. Writing Intensive Course– B.S., B.A. Course Learning Goals:
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47:202:343Q : White‐collar Crime (3 credits) This course focuses on crimes organized by persons whose economic, political, and privileged positions facilitate the commission; relative impunity of unusual crimes that are often national and international in scope and that have serious, long‐term consequences. Writing Intensive Course– B.S., B.A. Course Learning Goals:
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47:202:344Q : Crime in Different Cultures (3 credits) This course explores crime through the critical lens of anthropology by situating criminal acts as consequences of the complexity and nuances of human interactivity and cultural heterogeneity. Crime and punishment in other societies, especially non‐Western societies that lack institutional systems of criminal justice, and the social evolution of crime and crime‐related institutions throughout the United States of America’s history are particular topics that are discussed in this course. Writing Intensive Course– B.S., B.A. Course Learning Goals:
47: 202: 344Q2 Crime in Different Cultures Fall 20 (Salazar-Tobar) |
47:202:402 : Contemporary Problems in Corrections (3 credits) This course explores the impact of alternatives to incarceration, the growing prisoner rights movement, strikes by correctional employees, and public resentment toward persistently high rates of recidivism are major topics discussed in this course. In addition, the class provides for an in-depth study of issues concerning correctional education, job training, work release, and post-incarceration employment. Course Learning Goals:
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47:202:410 : Environmental Criminology (3 credits) This course considers how the everyday environment provides opportunities for crime as well as obstacles for carrying it out. Students that take this class will be involved in discussions about important methods for reducing crime by modifying or planning the built environment. Discussions about how environmental design may produce and places that make crime commission more or less opportune are covered in this class. Moreover, the course offers an alternative theory of crime based on the opportunity to carry it out. Course Learning Goals:
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47:202:411 : Juvenile Gangs and Co‐Offending (3 credits) This course explores juvenile street gangs, when they exist, when they are illusory, and public reactions to them. It also considers co‐offending by juveniles who are not necessarily gang members. The course considers what gang membership means, and when gangs are cohesive or not. It examines variations among juvenile street gangs, and contrasts these with other groups of co‐offenders that are sometimes called “gangs”. Course Learning Goals:
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47:202:412 : Organized Crime (3 credits) This course provides students with a historical and theoretical overview of organized crime, as well as a specific understanding of its variety. Students will gain an understanding of the structures of organized crime and the varieties of businesses associated with traditional and nontraditional organized crime groups. Course Learning Goals:
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47:202:421 : Crime Mapping (3 credits) This course provides a practical introduction to analyzing and mapping crime and other public safety data using open-sourced and web-based applications, as well as ArcGIS geographic information system (GIS) software. Students will learn skills to make and analyze maps and will develop a solid base upon which to build further expertise in crime mapping and GIS. Course Learning Goals:
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47:202:422 : Youth Violence (3 credits) This course focuses on the assessment, development, prevention, and treatment of youth violence among children and adolescents. Understanding and preventing youth violence is a major focus of the nation’s policy agenda and involves research and practice in the mental health, public health, psychiatry, and criminal justice communities. Using a multi-disciplinary approach, the course will review the biological, social, and psychological underpinnings of youth violence, and discuss how policymakers and practitioners at all levels deal with this problem. Course Learning Goals:
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47:202:423 : Crime Over the Lifecourse (3 credits) This course examines the development of anti-social and criminal of behavior from childhood through old age, including patterns of onset, persistence, intermittence, and desistance. What is known about why and how people start and stop committing crime at various ages, and the different types of crimes that are typically committed by people at different ages are specific topics that are covered in this course. Course Learning Goals:
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47:202:424 : Mass Incarceration and Collateral Consequences (3 credits) This course examines trends in mass incarceration, their sources, and their direct and indirect effects on society. Since 1970, incarceration rates in the United States have quintupled and are now higher than those in any other country in the world. These huge increases in mass incarceration over a short period of time have persisted through periods when crime was rising, and even in the more recent time periods when crime has been falling. Apart from the dubious effects of mass incarceration on public safety suggested by these divergent trends, mass incarceration also has substantial collateral consequences across society, affecting families, communities, the labor market, the military, political processes, and the use of taxpayer dollars. Course Learning Goals:
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47:202:425 : Miscarriages of Justice (3 credits) This course provides a critical and interdisciplinary examination of the current functioning of the American criminal justice system, focusing specifically on the procedures used by various criminal justice actors that can lead to errors in case processing and unjust outcomes. Students that take this course will examine policies and practices of the United States’ criminal justice system (e.g., police procedure, prosecution, jury selection, scientific evidence, appellate court procedures, etc.) that unintentionally contribute to the wrongful apprehension, prosecution, conviction, incarceration, and even execution of the innocent. Moreover, we explore the collateral consequences of punishing “false positives,” including implications for undermining the legitimacy of the criminal justice system and allowing impunity for culpable offenders who remain at-large. Course Learning Goals:
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47:202:466 : Topics in Criminal Justice - Vary per semester (3 credits) Current issues and problems; topics vary. May be taken more than once for different topics. 47:202:466:04 Topics in Criminal Justice: Drug Trafficking Fall 20 (Chin) 47: 202: 466: 05 Topics in Criminal Justice: Human Smuggling and Trafficking Fall 20 (Chin) |
47:202:499 : Internship in Criminal Justice (BA) Prerequisites: Special permission and junior or senior standing. (3 credits) 47-202-499 Internship in CJ Dr Beth Griffiths FA18
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47:204:105 : The Pursuit of Justice (3 credits) This course surveys philosophies and strategies regarding structures of justice. The class begins with a review of the differences between retributive and distributive justice and how they are related. This analysis leads to a broader discussion of “what justice means,” both historically and in contemporary thinking. Students are encouraged to craft their own ideas about justice in social relations and in response to the law. Required Course – B.A. Course Learning Goals:
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47:204:220 : Inequality (3 credits) American society tends to hold itself up as an arbiter of justice and equality, domestically and globally. Upon scrutiny, however, the topic of inequality reveals itself to be an epistemological aporia in which starkly oppositional ideas and frameworks are all held up as social goods, whether within American social practice, theoretical debate, academic discourse, or lived experience. This course addresses one, central question: How is it that institutions and nations with expressed intentions of achieving freedom, justice, fairness, and democratic thriving often end up both exacerbating injustice and deepening inequality? Required Course – B.A. Course Learning Goals:
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47:204:466 : Topics in Justice Studies - Vary per semester (3 credits) |
47: 204:481Q : Senior Thesis I (3 credits) This course is a research-based seminar designed for students demonstrating the academic maturity and preparation to pursue a thesis project independently. Students will draw on their knowledge of theory, methods, and policy learned in core and elective courses to analyze and propose a research plan on an important topic in criminal justice. Required Course – B.A. Course Learning Goals:
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47: 204:482Q : Senior Thesis II (3 credits) The senior thesis must be a substantive piece of scholarship involving primary or secondary research, which serves to synthesize knowledge acquired in the Justice Studies major over the course of the student’s undergraduate career. A senior thesis project should be an original work that ideally makes a contribution to the discipline of justice studies. Required Course – B.A. Course Learning Goals:
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