It is our departmental mission to contribute to ensuring humane, just, and effective crime and justice policies, programs and practices by providing our students with the knowledge and skills necessary to become informed citizens and effective agents of justice.

The Department of Criminal Justice is home to students who are working to advance our understanding of crime and criminality, design better approaches to effectively address crime and the problems related to it, and to those interested in engaging in social justice. Our hands-on educational approach provides the groundwork for successful careers in criminal justice, forensic science, law, loss prevention, private security, and much more.

Crime and society's attempts to control it are the main focus of the major courses in the curriculum. A variety of approaches and issues, from community policing to "three strikes and you're out" are evaluated and discussed as possible solutions. Lower level courses provide a general introduction to the components of the criminal justice system while upper level courses provide a more intensive analysis of areas such as management, comparative criminal justice, research methods and community crime prevention.

One of the strengths of the program is its versatility. It combines the core of liberal arts courses, the pre-professional criminal justice education, and the electives tailored to the needs and interests of the individual student.