Criminal Justice MS

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.

Prerequisites: none

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.

Prerequisites: none

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.

Prerequisites: none

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.

Prerequisites: none

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.

Prerequisites: none

Prerequisites: none

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.

Prerequisites: none

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.

Prerequisites: none

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.

Prerequisites: none