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Criminology
 The mission of the Justice Studies program is to analyze issues of justice and injustice within the societal contexts of human behavior in complex societies. Using interdisciplinary perspectives students critically examine the manifestation of this behavior through a Criminology or a Peace & Conflict perspective. Students are expected to develop an ethical awareness and the aptitude to decisively research a broad base of knowledge on issues of justice, crime, and the law.
The mission of the Criminology concentration is to offer a curriculum that seeks to understand the social nature of crime so as to develop rationale policies. In addition to studying courts, corrections, and law enforcement, students are expected to examine the law as a social product affected by cultural values, race, gender, class, or sexuality. They are expected to critically examine and assess the consequences of criminal behavior through the victim's and community's lenses, as well as the offender and the judicial system.
Criminology focuses on individual crimes but also more keenly addresses the social nature and implications of crime. The department emphasizes the effects of race, gender, class, or sexuality on criminal behavior. Criminology integrates academic, applied and theoretic scholarship. While applied criminology addresses the practices of the criminal justice system, academic and theoretical criminology address the following:
• The origins, nature and application of criminal laws Criminologists examine law as socially produced, thus, reflecting cultural values and social realities.
• The nature and causes of criminal behavior Criminologists argue that it important to understand the causes and motivations for crime in order to present information to inform policymakers about reform measures.
• The exploration and evaluation of the various agencies that apprehend and treat offenders.
• The societal responses to crime.
• Victimology and the roles/experiences of victims. Victimology, the study of crime victims, is considered to be the “mirror image” of criminology.
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