School of Criminal Justice

The School of Criminal Justice was the first program in the nation to grant the Ph.D. in criminal justice. Its faculty has always ranked first in research and scholarly productivity and its graduates are recognized leaders in academia and in practice. The Hindelang Criminal Justice Research Center continues to produce research with national and international impact on our knowledge about crime and on policy formation.

The School of Criminal Justice is committed to interdisciplinary study of criminal justice. The major emphasis is sophisticated research on crime measurement and causation, as well as research into questions of appropriate and effective methods of crime control in a democratic society. All types of crime and juvenile delinquency are the focus of study, and a total system approach is utilized to analyze, assess, and suggest changes in our crime control system.

The School has been consistently rated as first nation in terms of faculty research productivity, the quality of its graduate students and alumni, and the prestige accorded to it when professionals in the field are surveyed. Graduates have been highly successful in academic and in practice positions. They find opportunities in all the operating agencies of criminal justice, in the many private and non-profit organizations which provide services or make policy recommendations, and in the expanding academic field of criminal justice.

Criminal Justice, Ph.D., M.A., M.A./M.S.W. Study is concerned with all aspects of crime and societal reactions to crime. Areas of concentration are the nature of crime, law and social control, administration of the criminal justice process, and planned change in criminal justice. Dual-degree program areas of specialization are community-based corrections, mental health service with offenders and as alternatives to traditional criminal justice processing and delinquency. See Social Welfare, M.A. /M.S.W.