Students

Our program prepares students for positions as practitioners within criminal justice professions, graduate or law programs, or advancement for individuals already working in criminal justice fields.

The criminal justice program was established in 1974 with grant support from the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration of the U.S. Department of Justice.

This program is a cooperative venture that draws on the resources of anthropology, philosophy, sociology and criminal justice. By incorporating the various disciplines and departments along with their respective faculty, the program is able to integrate the various approaches and ideals to the study of criminal justice.

The mission of the department is broadly subsumed within the three functions of teaching, research and service to achieve the production and dissemination of knowledge guided by the principle of a just system of social regulation and control in the advancement of societal well-being. 

We will:

• Care about the quality of your learning experience.
• Challenge you to think both creatively and critically. Start you off in an introductory class that is approved for Essential Studies credit, used by the campus and in our region as a "model" for how large classes should be taught.
• Tie your criminal justice learning experiences together in our validated capstone course which is also an Essential Studies "A" (Advanced Communication) course.
• Provide high-quality core faculty that have all earned a Ph.D. from some of the top criminology and criminal justice doctoral programs in the world.
• Provide high quality adjunct faculty that are leaders in their respective fields, such as law and law enforcement.
• Provide a curriculum in accordance with the national Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences (ACJS) guidelines.