Criminal Justice Curriculum Objectives

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Keeping in mind the goals of the Criminal Justice major, graduates are expected to:

  • Gain an understanding of criminal behavior, including society’s responses to crime and delinquency and the consequences of crime for our society.
  • Be exposed to the moral and ethical dimensions of the various careers within criminal justice and learn the guidelines for appropriate professional conduct, including boundaries between workers and clients.Student takes notes during lecture
  • Become sensitized to the human impacts of criminal justice, including differential impacts of race/ethnicity, social class, age, gender, religious creed, sexual orientation, and physical, mental and developmental disabilities.
  • Gain an understanding of agencies and delivery systems of the criminal justice system and how to effect change to bring about social justice. Students will work effectively as change agents in a variety of criminal justice settings.
  • Identify ways in which oppression, privilege, discrimination, and social and economic disadvantage contribute to complex human welfare problems that are ultimately evidenced in the criminal justice system.
  • Be grounded in theoretical and empirical knowledge, values and skills related to criminal justice.
  • Understand a variety of research methods to collect and analyze data, in order to develop and evaluate interventions in criminal justice delivery systems.
  • Gain an understanding of the dynamics and treatment approaches for those who are victims of crime, including crisis and trauma interventions, as well as effective approaches to work with families of victims. Gain understanding of the needs of families of the incarcerated, especially as it relates to parent-child relationships and effective approaches to effect better outcomes.
  • Have knowledge and skills to use evidence-based methods to work with special populations in the criminal justice system, such as sexual offenders, domestic violence offenders, substance abusers, offenders with mental illnesses, offenders affiliated with the military and elderly incarcerated.
  • Be able to write at a beginning professional level to produce reports, letters and other forms of communication likely to be required in the criminal justice and social services arenas.
  • Be able to conduct a satisfactory oral presentation.