To major in Criminology and Criminal Justice, students complete a minimum of 69 CCJ credits. All classes used to satisfy Criminology and Criminal Justice major requirements, whether taken at PSU or elsewhere, must be passed with a grade of "C" (2.00 GPA) or above. Students can transfer up to 20 credits from a regionally accredited college or university toward the Criminology and Criminal Justice major requirements.
Required Courses (48 credit hours)
Students complete all of the following required courses.
- CCJ 300 Criminology and Criminal Justice
- CCJ 301 Policing in America
- CCJ 303 Punishment and Corrections
- CCJ 310 American Courts
- CCJ 317 Race, Crime and Criminal Justice
- CCJ 320U Theories of Crime and Justice
- CCJ 330U Crime Control Strategies
- CCJ 340 Crime Analysis
- CCJ 380 Criminal Justice Research
- CCJ 420 Criminal Law and Legal Reasoning
- CCJ 404 Internship (8 credit hours)*
*The CCJ Online, the CCJ 404 internship requirement is satisfied through completing an agency placement in each student’s home community. For CCJ Online students who are unable to complete an agency placement, a fully online course sequence on professional development topics is available as an alternative.
Elective Courses (24 credit hours)
CCJ Online students choose from the following elective courses.
- CCJ 305 Juvenile Justice Reform
- CCJ 312 Criminal Behavior
- CCJ 335 Understanding Crime Hotspots
- CCJ 336 Applied Crime Mapping
- CCJ 365U Crime and Social Justice
- CCJ 370U Women, Crime and Justice
- CCJ 390U Crimes of the Powerful
- CCJ 399 Mass Shooting in America
- CCJ 399 Crime and the Media
- CCJ 399 American Jails
- CCJ 410 Defense, Prosecution and Justice
- CCJ 435 Crime, Grime, and Fear
University Bachelor’s Degree Requirements
A PSU bachelor’s degree requires a minimum total of 180 credit hours. Of those, 62 must be upper-division. Almost all universities have general education requirements. At PSU, these are known as University Studies and include a 12-credit Upper Division Cluster and a six-credit Senior Capstone. By special arrangement, courses satisfying these requirements are available fully online exclusively for CCJ Online students and are offered at CCJ Online’s special tuition rate.
Additional PSU general education requirements are completed at regular in-state/out-of-state tuition rates and differ depending on whether students choose to pursue a Bachelor of Arts or a Bachelor of Science. CCJ Online students are provided specialized, personal advising on how to complete any remaining general education requirements fully online.