:: Criminal Justice Degrees
Criminal justice is the delivery of justice to those who have committed crimes. The criminal justice system is a series of government agencies and institutions whose goals are to identify and catch unlawful individuals to inflict a form of punishment on them. Other goals include the rehabilitation of offenders, preventing other crimes, and moral support for victims. The primary institutions of the criminal justice system are the police, prosecution and defense lawyers, the courts and prisons.
The criminal-justice system consists of three main parts:
- Law enforcement agencies, usually the police
- Courts and accompanying prosecution and defence lawyers
- Agencies for detaining and supervising offenders, such as prisons and probation agencies.
In the criminal justice system, these distinct agencies operate together as the principal means of maintaining the rule of law within society.
The functional study of criminal justice is distinct from criminology, which involves the study of crime as a social phenomenon, causes of crime, criminal behavior, and other aspects of crime. It emerged as an academic discipline in the 1920s, beginning with Berkeley police chief August Vollmer who established a criminal justice program at the University of California, Berkeley in 1916.Vollmer's work was carried on by his student, O.W. Wilson, who led efforts to professionalize policing and reduce corruption. Other programs were established in the United States at Indiana University, Michigan State University, San Jose State University, and the University of Washington. As of 1950, criminal justice students were estimated to number less than 1,000. Until the 1960s, the primary focus of criminal justice in the United States was on policing and police science.
Criminal justice degree programs at four-year institutions typically include coursework in statistics, methods of research, criminal justice, policing, U.S court systems, criminal courts, corrections, community corrections, criminal procedure, criminal law, victimology, juvenile justice, and a variety of special topics. A number of universities offer a Bachelor of Criminal Justice.
Select from the following list of current Criminal Justice Degrees:
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