This course is for students in the program who are ready to complete the research thesis requirement for the optional thesis concentration. Students will select an advisory committee to review their thesis manuscript and examine the student in an oral defense of the thesis.
This course examines the moral and ethical issues in law enforcement, the courts, and the correctional systems. Students will research major components of criminal justice, developing administrative-based leadership skills in dealing with codes of conduct, ethical dilemmas, disciplinary protocols, and departmental liability.
This course explores functional aspects of the criminal justice system, including planning and development, budgeting, forecasting, human resource management, and project management. Students will research a criminal justice agency’s organizational theories and behaviors. The research will be formatted on advanced factors of administrative duties of a leader guiding a law enforcement agency, dealing with constraints, the department’s strengths, and limitations while coming up with viable solutions.
This course analyzes the application of constitutional law principles to the foundations of the criminal justice system from the perspective of a law enforcement administrator. Students will research case studies that emphasize aspects of civil rights and civil liberty violations committed by law enforcement agencies and how to investigate these violations in policy and preparation.
This course studies the intersection of Christian teachings and the criminal justice system, exploring the attributes of a Christian leader within the contexts of crime prevention and response. Students will apply different Christian teaching to different scenarios of a criminal justice professional in the workplace (e.g. in relation to victims, community & evidence-based policing, treatment of offenders, etc.).
This course looks at the relationship between inner departmental policy development and outer departmental development through community policing. Students will study how to create and implement agency policy that fits into detailed legal and general order parameters. Students will also research factors of community policing to benefit law enforcement within a community. The course will demonstrate the imperative need to understand the details of criminal justice policy and community policing and how these topics directly affect one another.
This course offers students an advanced study in the theoretical causes of crime. It covers multiple perspectives on the cause of crime through the lenses of biological, psychological, sociological, cultural, and political theories. Students will complete the course and be able to apply criminological theory to their academic research and occupational endeavors.
This course studies both traditional and more recent philosophies of imprisonment. Topics included are prison architecture, management, prison gangs, over-crowding, life in prison versus death row, prison culture, mental ill inmates, and inmate social structure.
This course examines how to advance and implement structural agendas for crisis intervention including: recognition of threat levels, verbal judo, active listening, operative mediation strategies, and negotiation policies for mentally unstable persons. This course will familiarize the student with crisis theory, concepts, intervention, and strategies required for criminal justice first responders.
This course will offer students two perspectives on what it is to be a victim of crime, particularly focusing upon at-risk victims. The first part will study a crime victim, looking at general and detailed aspects from theory to empirical data. This research will focus on both offenders and victims of human trafficking, while researching the developmental process on these targeted victims.
This course will allow students to gain a foundational understanding of criminal intelligence and apply it to Geographic Information Systems software to enhance their criminal investigation dissemination. Students will be able to use geospatial information to create interactive mapping systems that plot viable intelligence for solving crimes and identifying hotspot areas within their community.
This course examines multiple nations to explore the origins and history of global terrorism. Students will apply these histories to contemporary conceptions of organizational features and responses from terrorist groups, seeking to understand their motivations in political or religious violence in geopolitical dynamics.
This course explores two dynamic types of homicides in contemporary society: serial killers and mass casualty offenders. Students examine case studies of some of the most notorious criminal homicides in vital pivotal moments in United States history in serial killer profiling and mass shootings that have taken the lives of innocent victims in both educational and public settings. The course allows students to understand these crimes from a criminal justice professional viewpoint.
This course studies what human trafficking is, both domestically and internationally, from the perspectives of the victims, traffickers, and demand buyers of the largest organized criminal enterprises. Students complete this course with an advanced level of empirical understanding of the multifaceted criminality of human trafficking.
This course examines two essential questions of combating human trafficking: how to investigate human trafficking from a law enforcement perspective and how to understand the driving force of human trafficking: demand buyers. Students research advanced methods of understanding how a law enforcement professional should investigate human trafficking in their community. Students also will seek to understand the evolutionary and influenced progress toward offending and the means to intervene in the development of an offender before they offend.
This course provides an opportunity for students to apply qualitative and quantitative research approaches to the study of criminal justice. Students will complete this course with a considerable understanding of researching contemporary criminal justice factors involving victims, offenders, administration, and criminal justice professionals. This course will provide a foundation for future academic and field research in criminal justice.
In this course, students collaborate with a faculty advisor on the initial stages of the research thesis proposal. The student will be tasked with developing a proposal relevant to the student’s concentration in criminal justice, presenting that research proposal, and beginning data collection.
This course provides a platform for the student to demonstrate ability to carry out original research, defend methods, theories, and conclusions before a faculty supervisor, and disseminate research findings in a manner befitting a criminal justice professional. This course may be repeated for credit.
