About Criminal Justice Studies

Mission

The multidisciplinary programs in the Department of Criminal Justice Studies explores the conception and implementation of law, crime and justice systems and ideas. The department emphasizes critical thinking about law, crime and justice systems and their entanglement with larger political economic processes. In particular, the offered programs explore how ideas and systems of crime, law and justice shape broader issues of social justice, especially those related to the experience of race, class, gender, sexuality and age inequity in the U.S. The programs teaches students the skills of critical analysis and ethical reasoning such that students can challenge structures and assumption and innovatively contribute to the assessment of alternative solutions to problems associated with the identification control and prevention of crime and delinquency.

Program Learning Outcomes

• Analyze how systemic inequality shapes and is shaped by crime, law and justice system.
• Analyze the history and politics of criminological knowledge.
• Critique and analyze claims, data and knowledge about crime, law and justice systems.
• Examine how people and groups impact, engage, contest and remake legal institutions and ideas.