Criminal Justice University

Posts Tagged ‘fun classes’

CJU spends a lot of time talking about criminal justice careers and everything that prepares someone for a criminal justice job including a great education. Sometimes it is hard for people to envision the types of classes that someone would take in order to graduate with a criminal justice degree. We thought we would put together a list of some of the really cool classes that most criminal justice majors take as they earn their degree (and possibly some just really fun extra courses):

Intro to The Criminal Justice System – Okay, this is not so cool or exciting but is a foundation class that most programs will start with. Generally this is a study of all of the agencies that exist in our court system including: the courts, the police, prosecutors, public defenders, and corrections (officers and facilities). This one is sexy, but just makes sure everyone was paying attention in their civics classes in high school.

Retail Security – Well this is starting to sound more fun, but wait are we talking about mall cops (not that there is anything wrong with that at all)?  In fact, it is about loss prevention and general tactics used to make sure that shoplifting and other theft does not occur.  This is a much maligned career (partially due to the recent Mall Cop movie starring Paul Blart), but is a HUGE problem challenging our retail industry.

Crime Prevention – Now we are getting to some law enforcement work, we are probably starting to get your attention. This class talks about different times of crime prevention strategies that can be deployed by police departments, community organizations, or any other group looking to reduce the crime rates around them (local businesses, etc.).  So again, the focus here is really on avoiding a crime, not investigating crimes.

Forensic Biology – This sounds like some CSI stuff (very cool).  In fact, this is exactly about crime scene investigations and different techniques for collecting evidence.  This course covers topic like ecological, entomological, and biotechnological techniques used by law enforcement personnel across the country.

The typical criminal justice program will offer somewhere around 20 to 50 different classes for a student to choose from to fulfill their degree requirements.  It is important to take a look at the classes that are offered before you plan your class schedules to make sure that you are getting exactly what you are interested and/or need to learn to advance your criminal justice career.

We can’t cover all of the programs offered by every university in this one blog article but did want to wet your whistles and to let you know that the criminal justice field is complex and full of lots of specializations.  So it’s not normally as easy as the criminologists make it look on TV.

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