Online Grad Certificate in Administration & Leadership in Criminal Justice

Criminal Justice Policy Analysis

This course explores how crime reduction policies influence crime rates in the United States and examines how an analyst can determine policy effectiveness. Students study a variety of policy and social influences on crime in the US and in other countries. A strong emphasis is placed on quantitative assessment of city, state, national, and international data.

Criminal Justice Management

The criminal justice system is a collection of loose-knit agencies. Each agency has a set of goals and operating strategies. Effective management of these agencies is complex. This course introduces students to organizational and management theory with a focus on elements of effective leadership.

Mentoring and Leadership

In a variety of professions, you may be called upon to be a mentor or take on a leadership role. Whether this happens formally or informally, it is important to be equipped with a foundational set of skills, knowledge, and self-awareness needed to be successful in this role, ultimately to help support and ensure the success of others. This course provides an overview of responsibilities of mentors and leaders, helps you identify your own unique leadership and mentoring style, and teaches you strategies for working work with others who may have different work styles. It will also provide you tools to help motivate and inspire others, help others to be more productive and fulfilled, and teach you strategies to handle conflict and underperformance effectively. Mentoring and Professional Development is open to anyone who wishes to gain mentorship and leadership skills that can be applied in the workplace, particularly contexts that employ mentoring models (e.g., academia and research) and/or that use team-oriented strategies for projects and tasks. This course is offered over the course of two full-day trainings. There are no prerequisites to take this course.

Introduction to Research and Evaluation

Introduction to Research and Evaluation is a full semester course that is designed to expose students to the ins and outs of research and evaluation in the behavioral or social sciences. Students will learn about the core intra-and interpersonal skills and strategies to become a successful and productive research mentee and contributing member of a research team. Students will also receive training across a wide variety of technical skills needed for entry level research work. Students will develop a universal skill set that will prepare them for success across a variety of professional settings—not just research.

Advanced Skills in Research and Evaluation

Advanced Skills in Research and Evaluation is a full semester course that is designed to prepare students for working as an advanced research assistant or research professional in the behavioral or social sciences. Students are trained in the basic components of and steps for carrying out a research project or program evaluation and will engage in hands-on application of knowledge and skills across a range of topics including grant writing, requirements and reporting; project budgeting; institutional review board procedures, forms and applications; project design; data security and management; and presenting, report writing, and publishing project findings. Students are required to have completed the Introduction to Research and Evaluation course before they can register for this course.

Terrorism and Homeland Security

This course provides an overview of the various components related to an empirical understanding of terrorism. The course will also review the development of homeland security in America as it relates to terrorism and situate this development within various perspectives. Emphasis in this course will be placed on critical assessment of ideologically-based viewpoints of terrorism and homeland security. Scientific empiricism will guide the student's journey of the variety of topics that will be covered in this course.

Correctional Theory and Policy

This course examines the evolution of correctionaltheory, its impact on policy, and its empirical status. An emphasis is placed on the use of evidence-based knowledge to shape correctional policy and practice.

Theory and Practice of Crime Prevention

This course is designed to provide an exploration of the various approaches to reducing crime as well as the theories that inform those approaches. We will focus most fully on situational approaches to crime prevention, though we will also explore crime prevention through social development, community-based crime prevention. We will also examine how policing intersects with these various approaches to crime prevention.

Policing in Context

Policing takes place in a variety of contexts that influence the decisions of police officers and agencies. Two of these contexts are the organization and the community, both of which influence individual officer behavior and the nature and form of policing within a jurisdiction.The first portion of the course introduces students to the social scientific study of U.S. police organizations by exploring the literature on organizational goals and general organization theory. The first portion of the course concludes with an examination of the effect of organizationson officer behavior. The second half of the class examines the relationship between crime occurrences, local police, community residents, and communities. The class concludes with an examination of the roles of citizens as both coproducers of public safety and security and as consumers of police services.

Seminar in Police Decision-Making

This seminar on policing will explore issues that surround police decision-making in American society. Police discretion has been the object of intensive inquiry since it was "discovered" by researchers in the 1950s. What is police discretion, how and why is it exercised, and how is it controlled? What does the research show regarding the factors that predict police officers' decisions and what questions remain unanswered? How does police behavior influence citizens' perceptions of the legitimacy of the police? Students in this course are expected to learn more about a) the theoretical foundations ofparticular propositions about police behavior, b) the extent of empirical support for those propositions, c) the strengths and weaknesses of different methodologies for developing and testingpropositions, and d) the implications of theory and evidence for managerial practice and institutional reform.

Criminal Justice Agency Practicum

This course provides professional development and mentoring for students seeking to pursue academic careers in justice-related agencies. Career options include academics conducting applied research in agencies and individuals serving as researchers employed in these private or public agencies. The goal is to provide students with knowledge of these opportunities, how to secure employment and achieve career success, and the skills needed to be a valued research employee.

Grant Writing and Resource Development

The purpose of this course is to investigate sources of grant funding at the federal, state, and local level. Another primary purpose is examine grant announcements, RFPs (Request for Proposals), and example grant proposals. Students will also practice developing a grant proposal.

Community Organization and Program Management

The purpose of this course is to enable students to 1) utilize effective leadership and management skills to organize communities and to plan, implement, evaluate and manage health promotion and education programs within communities; 2) empower individuals within a community to take action; and 3) develop and maintain coalitions when needed.