CCJ Online Course Descriptions and Schedule
The CCJ Online courses listed below are currently scheduled to be offered across the calendar year. Please note that the courses and academic terms listed below are subject to change.
These fully online courses are only open to CCJ Online students and they cannot be found in the PSU Schedule of Classes. Registration for CCJ Online courses takes place through a separate, customized process. Students are assisted with CCJ Online registration each term by their academic advisor.
CCJ 300 – Criminology & Criminal Justice
4 credits, 5 weeks
An introduction and overview of the criminology and criminal justice major designed to provide students with an understanding of law, crime, and the criminal justice system in America. Examines the law's proactive function in teaching people how to live peacefully within their communities and the law's reactive function in sanctioning criminal behavior. Includes an introduction to various theories of crime causation and an overview of the criminal justice system and its response in processing those who transgress the law.
CCJ 301 – Policing in America
4 credits, 5 weeks
An introduction to the study of policing in the United States. Policing is studied from three perspectives: the police officer-citizen interaction, the agency-community relationship, and the legal and ethical questions of policing in a democratic society. The course considers the history and future of policing, the police task, police strategies, and police relationships with the community and criminal justice system.
CCJ 303 – Punishment and Corrections
4 credits, 5 weeks
Examination of historical and contemporary approaches to the punishment of adult and juvenile offenders in institutional and community settings. Includes discussion of theories of punishment as they relate to today's correctional policies and practices. Controversial topics like prisoner rights, the death penalty, and mandatory sentencing are covered.
CCJ 305 – Juvenile Justice Reform
4 credits, 5 weeks
Modern approaches, evolving issues, and best practices for juvenile delinquency prevention and juvenile justice reform are the foci of the course. Students explore identifiers of “at-risk” youths, and the role disproportionate minority contact, poverty, trauma, mental health disorders, and physical or intellectual disabilities play in affecting the behavior of juveniles. Examination of past practices like the "school to prison pipeline" phenomenon that have disproportionately impacted youth from communities of color are critiqued and contrasted with more efficacious and equitable approaches.
CCJ 310 – American Courts
4 credits, 5 weeks
A comprehensive survey of the role and function of courts in the United States. Emphasis is placed on the operations of trial-level courts hearing criminal cases. Explores the roles and duties of courtroom participants, the structure of the judiciary, the relationship between the formal rule of law and daily activities of courts, decision-making, and perspectives from which to view the courts. Attention also to appellate courts, juvenile courts, court reform, and issues of gender, race, and ethnicity.
CCJ 312 – Criminal Behavior
4 credits, 5 weeks
Examination of psychosocial theories of crime and identification of the individual-level factors associated with the onset, continuity, and desistance of criminal behavior in juveniles and adults. Special topics covered include the relationship between mental illness and violence, psychopathy, sexual deviancy, substance abuse, human aggression, and the rehabilitation of offenders.
CCJ 317 – Race, Crime and Criminal Justice
4 credits, 5 weeks
Racial disparity is a major focus of the field of criminology and criminal justice. This course provides an understanding of the tools used to describe, theoretically explain, and empirically examine the complex relationship between race, crime, and victimization in the United States. The course focuses on all major racial and ethnic groups who are disproportionately justice-impacted--including both victims and offenders. The influence of race at all stages of the criminal justice system is examined.
CCJ 320U – Theories of Crime and Justice
4 credits, 5 weeks
The focus of the course will be on theoretical explanations for the cause(s) of criminal behavior. Theories about criminal behavior are critically important because they are directly relevant to the development of effective strategies to prevent and control crime. As such, a major theme throughout the course will be the policy implications of theories of crime. The course will review major theories of crime within the multidisciplinary field of criminology. The objectives of the course are to provide students with an understanding of 1) major categories of criminological theory, 2) major theories within each category, and 3) policy implications of these specific theories and of different perspectives on crime generally.
CCJ 330U – Crime Control Strategies
4 credits, 5 weeks
An analysis of the methods used to control crime in American society. Emphasis on understanding the sometimes conflicting goals of the criminal justice system; attention is given to the general categories of general and specific deterrence, aggressive enforcement, situational and environmental defensive measures, and modification of the social order. Special attention will be given to how other countries control crime and the problems of comparison because of political and cultural differences.
CCJ 335 – Understanding Crime Hotspots
4 credits, 5 weeks
Criminal events are not uniformly distributed across space; nor are such events randomly patterned. Rather, crime and disorder patterns tend to concentrate in specific places and at specific times. In addition, crime is a relatively rare event, meaning that most locations experience little to no occurrences. By exploring where and when crime concentrates, we can learn more about why crime occurs at these locations, and importantly, we can learn how to prevent future occurrences. Understanding Crime Hotspots brings the geographic concepts of space and place into the context of criminology.
CCJ 336 – Applied Crime Mapping
4 credits, 5 weeks
Introduces the technical and analytical skills used in crime mapping using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) – a combination of hardware and software used to map spatial patterns. In this course, we develop and build the skills needed to interpret, create, analyze and communicate spatial patterns of crime. We consider what features make a useful crime map by critically analyzing existing maps of crime patterns, identifying elements that aid in clear communication and easy interpretation, and apply these features in crime maps made for presentation, communication and analysis.
CCJ 340 – Crime Analysis
4 credits, 8 weeks
Designed to provide students with the basic skills necessary to work in this growing area. The course starts off with an orientation to criminal justice data sources (e.g., UCR, SHR, NIBRS) and relational database design. We then move on to cover basic analytic procedures used by crime analysts, including the calculation of crime rates, percent change over time, frequency tables, and measures of central tendency and dispersion. The central focus of the class, however, is learning to use MS Excel to analyze real crime data. Among the skills you will learn are the creation and management of spreadsheets, filtering data, temporal analysis, the use of PivotTables, and graphing.
CCJ 365U – Crime and Social Justice
4 credits, 5 weeks
Explores social justice in the context of crime and the criminal justice system in America. Investigates how the interconnections between crime, politics, and the economy shape the formation of criminal law and criminal justice policies. Particular attention is paid to how politically-influenced definitions of the “crime problem” in America produce disparate impacts on people of color, both individually and across whole communities. Proposed methods of increasing social justice in the criminal justice context are discussed.
CCJ 370U – Women, Crime, and Justice
4 credits, 5 weeks
Women as criminals, victims, and professionals in the criminal justice system are the focus of this course. Theories, policies, and relevant empirical studies will be discussed in the context of the historical, socio-political, and cultural forces that shaped them. Topics may include: girls in gangs, female police officers, mothers behind bars, domestic violence, and pregnancy and drug use.
CCJ 380 – Criminal Justice Research
4 credits, 5 weeks
Introduction to the basic concepts of social science research including hypothesis testing, research design, causality, sampling, and measurement. Course is intended to provide students with necessary skills to critically evaluate crime and delinquency research as well as design and implement basic research projects.
CCJ 390U – Crimes of the Powerful
4 credits, 5 weeks
Focuses on crimes committed by persons of high social status as opposed to traditional "street crimes." White collar corporate, governmental, and occupational crime examples include: violations of environmental, safety, health, and labor laws; finance crimes; corporate abuses of power; fraud; crimes of globalization; and violations of the public trust. Explores the challenges of controlling white collar crime, including passing laws, developing and implementing effective regulation, policing, prosecuting, adjudicating, and otherwise responding to criminal wrongdoing by corporate and high social status offenders.
CCJ 399 – Mass Shooting in America
2 credits, 5 weeks
An examination of the phenomenon of mass shootings in America. The course explores the available data on trends in and distribution of mass shootings, the characteristics of shooters, and patterns in the features of incidents. Potential public policy responses, as distinct from political proposals, are explored from a criminological perspective.
CCJ 399 – Crime and the Media
2 credits, 5 weeks
This course explores mass media depictions of crime and justice in the United States. It explores the media’s impact on public perceptions of crime and justice, including how media depictions distort public understandings of criminal behavior and justice institutions. The effects of these distortions on crime and justice policy is examined.
CCJ 399 – American Jails
2 credits, 5 weeks
This course focuses on the unique role that local jails play in the American criminal justice system. Topics include the development of local jails and their function today, relationships to other criminal justice institutions, and the challenges related to jail operation. Special attention is paid to the differences between local jails and state prisons, including the characteristics of their inmate populations and the functions they serve within the American correctional systems.
CCJ 404 – Internship
4 credits, 10 credits
Students apply learning and skills in practical settings with criminal justice agencies where they learn from professionals in the field. CCJ Online students unable to complete an agency placement may satisfy this requirement through an online professional development course track. Senior status and instructor permission required.
CCJ 410 – Defense, Prosecution, and Justice
4 credits, 5 weeks
From the initial arrest, all the way to a jury verdict, decisions have to be made about how to handle a criminal case. Critical decisions are made by police, prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges, juries, and defendants themselves. All individuals in this process have their own unique experiences, which can ultimately affect how they handle a case. In this course, we will examine key decision-making points through the lens of different participants in the process (such as investigators, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and judges). We will examine the research that identify the legal factors that most drive decisions (such as strength of evidence) but also the “extra-legal” factors that also influence decisions (such as attitudes and biases). Course topics include: decisions in criminal investigations, defense and prosecution decisions about cases, decisions about competency, judicial decision to waive juveniles to adult court, defendant’s decisions about how to resolve their cases, among other topics.
CCJ 420 – Criminal Law and Legal Reasoning
4 credits, 5 weeks
Study of the basic concepts related to criminal law, including: historical development, legal elements of crime and proof, defenses and mitigation, reasonable doubt, and presumptions of fact; with particular emphasis on the application of logical reasoning to make legal decisions.
CCJ 435 – Crime, Grime, and Fear
4 credits, 5 weeks
Crime, grime, and fear is a course designed to study the social, economic, political, and physical factors underlying neighborhood crime and decline. Special attention is given to physical and social incivilities, the "broken windows" theory, police-community partnerships, and problem-solving. Students will work on neighborhood-centered projects to explore solutions to neighborhood crime patterns, disorder, and fear of crime, and ideas for strengthening police-citizen relations, and community building.