Criminal Justice B.S.

Craig Bishop, Ed.D., Director

The Criminal Justice major consists of 43 hours of core coursework, plus 12 hours of required supporting courses. The major balances theoretical concepts with practical experience. Students will be exposed to a variety of community, legal and police environments. The program is excellent preparation for careers in law enforcement, probation, the courts, and corrections. Students who successfully complete the criminal justice major will receive the Bachelor of Science (BS) degree.

Criminal justice students must:

• Maintain a cumulative GPA of 2.50 or higher
• All final grades for major and supporting courses must be C- or higher
• All criminal justice competency assessment scores must be 70% or higher (based on specific assignments for criminal justice courses).

Criminal Justice Core Competencies

Criminal Justice majors are required to demonstrate mastery of the following core competencies:

1. Administration of justice including correctional processes, criminological theory, law adjudication, law enforcement, and juvenile justice.
2. Critical thinking and reasoning skills including the ability to think critically, orally articulate, and logically justify thought processes.
3. Professionalism, including legal conduct and behavior, willingness to be mentored, effective interpersonal relationships, integrity, ethics, interpersonal relationships, problem solving, written communications, understanding of and appreciation for diversity, and commitment to fairness and equality.
4. Research and analytical methods
5. Practical experience.

Criminal Justice Field Placement

All Criminal Justice majors must successfully complete a 270-clock-hour field placement (CJS 400 ). During this placement, students must demonstrate mastery of all core competencies.

To be eligible to enroll in CJS 400 - Field Placement I , students are required to successfully complete CJS 401 - Field Placement Seminar .

Students are eligible to enroll in an additional field placement up to 270-clock-hours to further develop skills and gain practical experience. This additional field placement may be completed in a different setting than the first field placement and will require enrolling in course CJS 405.

A criminal background check may be required as a prerequisite for a student beginning field placement. This criminal background check will be at the expense of the student or the agency requiring the criminal background check.

The Criminal Justice program reserves the right to deny enrollment in CJS 400 - Field Placement I  and/or CJS 405 - Field Placement II to any student that the Criminal Justice faculty determines unprepared to enter field placement.

Students that have been successfully employed within a Criminal Justice agency for a minimum of two consecutive years are eligible to complete a graded portfolio during the CJS 401 - Field Placement Seminar  course to petition for waiver from the 270-clock-hour field placement experience. The Criminal Justice faculty will grade the portfolio based on a grading rubric designed to measure the students mastery of the core competencies required to be demonstrated within the CJS 400  and CJS 405 Field Placement experiences. Students that provide the required evidence within the portfolio will be granted opportunity to pay the per credit hour fee of $50 to earn the full 6 credit hours for CJS 400 - Field Placement I .

53 hours