Courses
CJS 6025. Genocide and War Crimes. (3 Hours)
Exposes students to specific cases of genocide and war crimes and surveys current international-level policies bearing on genocide and war crimes. Assesses responses of international organizations and national governments to such crimes to identify existing difficulties in developing appropriate methods of punishments and prevention of crimes against humanity.
CJS 6030. Organized Crime. (3 Hours)
Surveys the history of organized crime around the world. Introduces the origins and activities of organized crime groups, policies designed to combat organized crime, and explanations for the persistence of organized crime. Also discusses new forms of organized crime.
CJS 6035. Corruption, Integrity, and Accountability. (3 Hours)
Traces the history, nature, causes, and effects of corruption through concrete cases and illustrations. Emphasizes corruption in the justice system, politics, and public administration, as well as international cases. Also covers international and national laws and standards against corruption (with special emphasis on the U.N. convention against corruption and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act). Following an in-depth discussion of efforts to measure corruption, governance, and anticorruption efforts, the course then focuses on the role of stakeholders, ranging from the private sector to government, civil society, and individual actors.
CJS 6040. Human Trafficking and Exploitation. (3 Hours)
Introduces the phenomenon of human trafficking in the global context. Discusses specific forms and regional variations of human trafficking, including forced labor and sex work. Examines individual and societal effects of human trafficking and assesses formal responses to this type of crime. Also covers the role of global processes in the facilitation of human trafficking.
CJS 6045. Policing Issues around the Globe. (3 Hours)
Surveys current global policing issues and explores the increasing opportunities for and benefits of cooperation between policing organization across national boundaries. Also examines modern policing by comparing police practices around the globe, identifying common challenges in policing across the world, and investigating the challenges faced by an increasingly “internationalized” form of policing.
CJS 6105. Domestic and International Terrorism. (3 Hours)
Includes a general introduction to the overt as well as underlying ideology, history, reasons, and causes of terrorism. Discusses both domestic and international terrorism, with a focus on domestic hate groups, the roles of politics and the media, and counterterrorism. Exposes students to the philosophies of terrorists and terrorism.
CJS 6125. National Security—Law and Policy. (3 Hours)
Examines the various elements of national power and their application in advancing U.S. interests. Explores the distribution of national security powers among the three branches of government. Offers students an opportunity to develop a recognition of the synergy a multidisciplined approach affords by analyzing current strategy and policy.
CJS 6135. Intimate Partner Violence. (3 Hours)
Examines the causes and consequences of intimate partner violence, as well as the latest research regarding the criminal justice response.
CJS 6300. Communities and Crime. (3 Hours)
Focuses on various issues in the study of communities and crime. Offers students an opportunity to understand how neighborhood organization and patterns affect crime and vice versa. Attention is given to both the factors that influence neighborhood-level crime rates, as well as the effects that neighborhood characteristics have on the behavior and outcomes of individuals. Includes policy implications and current practices.
CJS 6340. Substance Abuse and Addictions. (3 Hours)
Provides the criminal justice professional with an overview of relevant issues surrounding the use/abuse of drugs and alcohol. Examines the relationship between substance abuse/addiction and crime. Explores the impact of drug legislation, i.e., school zone, three strikes, mandatory minimum sentences, etc., on police, the courts, and corrections. Investigates current programs and their effectiveness on prevention.
CJS 6405. Criminological Theory for Criminal Justice Leaders. (3 Hours)
Examines a wide range of criminological theories pertaining to criminal offenders and the correlates of crime. Students are expected to read selections from the leading empirical and theoretical literature on crime and criminality, to involve themselves in group discussions of the reading, and to assess critically the applicability of various theoretical perspectives to selected crime types.
CJS 6415. Legal Decision Making and Leadership. (3 Hours)
Reviews the literature on decision making, especially in the criminal justice system, and utilizes case studies as a way to discuss how legal constraints can affect leadership. While legal procedures, rules, and guidelines must be observed, they are only one set of constraints on active leadership. Decision making in an organizational context requires knowledge of the organization’s operation, its culture, and the situations in which decisions are shaped and made individually or collectively.
CJS 6430. Risk Management. (3 Hours)
Provides a framework for an organizational leader to improve decision making through a comprehensive understanding of an organization’s exposure to risk. Exposes students to skills for conducting these assessments across organizational boundaries and in public-private partnerships. Focuses on how to model, measure, or assess undesirable risks and reduce risks relevant to large organizations with collective public obligations. Emphasizes conducting homeland-security-related assessments across criminal justice disciplines and in public-private security collaborations.
CJS 6435. Program Evaluations. (3 Hours)
Offers students an opportunity to understand the elements of successful program evaluation as well as the threats to validity implicit in program evaluation designs. Identifies the infrastructure, including information needed to implement new programs based on evaluations, and seeks to enable students to assess the utility of evaluations made of programs in their respective fields.
CJS 6440. GIS, Evidence-Based Learning, and Policy. (3 Hours)
Offers students an opportunity to develop an understanding of GIS-assisted mapping, other uses of GIS, as well as the misuse and misinterpretation that often occurs when maps are drawn based on inaccurate information. GIS applications are currently being deployed to gather information and intelligence across a broad spectrum in the public domain. Discusses the ethical and technical aspects of such data-driven approaches.
CJS 6470. Criminal Justice Capstone. (3 Hours)
Forms the culmination of the student’s learning in the Criminal Justice Leadership Program. Serves to synthesize the knowledge gained from each course in the program. Offers students an opportunity to utilize this knowledge to improve their leadership abilities.
CJS 6962. Elective. (1-4 Hours)
Offers elective credit for courses taken at other academic institutions. May be repeated without limit.