About Criminology and Criminal Justice programs

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty   

Department of Criminology and
Criminal Justice

Location: Building 51, Room 2310
Phone: (904) 620-1724
Web Address: http://www.unf.edu/coas/ccj/

Dr. David R. Forde, Chair

Mission

The Department of Criminology & Criminal Justice offers a variety of programs in the social sciences. The Department offers a Bachelor of Arts degree in Criminal Justice and offers a minor in Criminal Justice as well. The Department also offers a Master of Science degree program in Criminal Justice.

The Department of Criminology & Criminal Justice seeks to provide its students with the theoretical, practical and ethical foundations for understanding crime and the criminal justice system in its social context. The faculty is committed to excellence through the development of focused and relevant scholarship. Through excellence in research and teaching in the areas of law creation, crime, deviance and societal responses to law violation, students develop a greater understanding of the challenges of social control and its dynamic processes. Participation in research and internships assures relevance to current practice and further prepares students to apply their knowledge in the field, to conduct critical analyses, and to undertake policy development and implementation. Students at the graduate level receive advanced instruction in research methods and theory, helping students develop professional skills for direct employment or more advanced study. Rigorous commitment to peer-review and collegiality help assure that an ethic of continuous-improvement and self-reflection govern all departmental processes.

Criminology & Criminal Justice Major 

The undergraduate degree program in Criminology & Criminal Justice is broad-based in nature, stressing the interrelationships between the various components of the criminal justice system — police, courts, corrections — and familiarizing students with each of these components and their theoretical bases. The program also recognizes and builds upon the interdisciplinary nature of the field it seeks to address. Criminal justice draws together all the social and behavioral sciences, the natural sciences, the mathematical and computer sciences, and law and jurisprudence to focus on the problem of crime in society. Indeed, accreditation guidelines for post-secondary criminal justice education programs clearly specify that the curricula “must give explicit recognition to the multi-disciplinary character of the field.” The UNF program is designed to comply with that standard.

There are no specific Criminology & Criminal Justice prerequisites at the lower level, although STA 2014 (Elementary Statistics) is a prerequisite to CCJ 3700 (Research Methods in Criminology & Criminal Justice), and CCJ 2002 (Crime in America) is recommended as a preparatory course for the major.

Graduate Program 

Criminology& Criminal Justice education is one of the most rapidly growing fields in higher education today. Public concerns about crime, and the dramatic expansion of the criminal justice system in recent decades, have spurred a proliferation of courses in this field in colleges across the country. Jobs that did not exist two decades ago – such as victim advocates or police computer mapping specialists – continue to develop. There is a growing demand for persons with graduate level education in all sectors of the system. The Master of Science in Criminal Justice at UNF provides an opportunity for advanced academic work in this expanding field of study.

As an interdisciplinary field, Criminology & Criminal Justice draws together all the social and behavioral sciences, natural sciences, mathematical and computer sciences, history, law and jurisprudence to focus on the problem of crime in society. The MSCJ program at UNF is vitally concerned with the interrelationship between theory, practice and research. The program emphasizes the acquisition of professional skills that will enable students to keep abreast of new research and developments in the field long after they have completed their formal studies.