SSP 436 - Introduction to Criminal Justice

4.5 Continuing Education Units (CEU). This course is not for Credit(s).

This continuing education course is designed to explore the history, philosophy, and social development of police, courts, and corrections in a democratic society. Topics to be covered include: identification and operations of local, state, and federal agencies, while emphasizing a criminal justice career orientation.

Course Objectives

Upon completion of this course the student will be able to:

1. relate the components of the criminal justice system to the collective goal of public safety in the United States and other industrialized countries;
2. analyze the historical development of Anglo-American law and its impact on contemporary substantive and procedural law with a focus on civil rights, women’s rights, hate crimes, and minority groups throughout the United States and other industrialized countries;
3. compare the three major methods of crime measurement, including how the data is used in the criminal justice system and how it reports demographic information about offenders;
4. evaluate major criminological theories that attempt to explain criminal behavior from socio-economic, racial, and cultural perspectives ;
5. examine the role of crime victims in the criminal justice system and the historical development of the victims’ rights movement including their legal rights;
6. analyze the structure and role of law enforcement in a diverse society;
7. distinguish between the state and federal court system in America;
8. describe the factors which influence sentencing;
9. analyze sentence disparities as they relate to gender, geographical area, race, and socio-economic status;
10. explain the historical development of institutional corrections and current issues related to the inmate population, including its relationship to global incarceration rates;
11. define the goals and responsibilities of community corrections, including trends focusing on re-entry and reduction of recidivism rates;
12. analyze the unique characteristics of juvenile justice and issues related to differences in racial, gender, and socio-economic status of delinquency and juvenile offenders;
13. evaluate the future of the criminal justice system under crime control and due process models;
14. relate the discretion that is exerted throughout the criminal justice process with the importance of ethical decision-making at each step; and
15. locate, evaluate, use, and cite appropriate academic resources in order to analyze a contemporary issue currently faced by the criminal justice system.