Overview
- Degree Level
- Undergraduate
- Degrees Offered
- Bachelor of Arts
- school/college
- College of Arts and Sciences
Arcadia’s Criminology and Criminal Justice major will introduce you to schools of thought and social theories on the origins, nature, and extent of criminal behavior, criminal justice, and the justice system. Students gain hands-on investigative experience in our Crime Scene House, study unsolved criminal cases in our Cold Case Practicum, and examine the prison system through our Inside Out course.
As a Criminal Justice major, you’ll:
Above: Student researching as part of Associate Professor of Criminal Justice Dr. Favian Guertin-Martin’s Untapped: Exploring the Sociocultural and Scientific World of Beer course.
Required Course
This course examines historical and contemporary criminological theories and research on nexus between race and crime. We'll cover contemporary responses to race and crime in the United States and abroad. To understand the connection between race and crime, you'll draw on both scholarly research and popular culture to develop a critical understanding of social inequality with respect to minority involvement in the criminal justice system.
Required Course
Why people engage in deviant behavior, including criminal activity, has long been the subject of sociological inquiry. In this course, a variety of perspectives are considered, including functionalist, radical, social, psychological, and structural theories. Among the questions asked: Why do people commit deviant and criminal acts? What acts are defined as deviant and criminal, and why? Who has the power to define acts as deviant and criminal?
Required Course
This unique course is affiliated with the national Inside/Out program. Class meetings take place at the Philadelphia Prison System’s House of Corrections where students have the opportunity to learn about the criminal justice system in the United States. The class is composed of Arcadia students (outside) and incarcerated individuals (inside). Inside and outside students meet once a week in the House of Corrections to discuss readings related to the course topic and to work on research projects.
This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognizing you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.
If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.