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| Fact Sheet |
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The Department of Criminal Justice seeks to prepare interested students for related careers, as well as for responsible citizenship in this public policy area, by critically examining social responses to crime and related harms. Thus, the department continues to enhance the program academically while emphasizing community and professional outreach.
Academic enhancement continues traditional department commitments by fostering good communication skills, and by the development of an understanding of criminal justice policies and practices. At the same time, it introduces contemporary and expanded interests in the relationship of criminal justice to social and economic justice. Community and professional outreach facilitates such learning by developing integrated opportunities in research, community development, and vocational preparation.
The combined program seeks to holistically educate our students for good jobs, good careers, and good lives in a good society – that they help build. As such, it builds on the purview of criminal justice as an academic discipline grappling with serious constitutional, civic, and policy issues regarding harm, power, equality, and fundamental fairness.
During the Spring 2004 Semester, the department began offering two new undergraduate courses: CJ 130 (Introduction to Forensic Science), and CJ 245 (Introduction to Restorative Justice). They represent a significant commitment to meeting growing public and student interest in these two areas. Similarly, in Fall 2006, the department offers its newest course, CJ 180 (Hate Crimes and Extremist Groups).
The Department of Criminal Justice has continued in recent years to nurture and expand its community connections. Such efforts include the following:
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Restorative Justice activities (major participation in advocating and
organizing for reparative approaches to crime and delinquency, locally
and statewide); |
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Healy/Success/Justice youth reentry pilot program (a collaboration with
Chicago Public School and CSU Project Success to bring juvenile
Probationers to campus and encourage them to consider college education
as a possible part of their futures); |
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St. Charles Youth Corrections Center delegation and program (in collaboration
with Youth Service Project, Inc. and CSU Family Life Center, this effort
conveys encouragement to incarcerated youth about reentry to their
communities); |
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School of Leadership/South Shore High School (a collaboration, supported
by a Gates Foundation grant, with Chicago Public Schools, Alternatives, Inc.,
and CSU political science to provide local high school youth and faculty with
CSU faculty and community expertise in constitutional foundations, criminal
justice, and conflict resolution to design and implement a holistically more
effective education); |
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Sponsorship of, and faculty participation and leadership in, expungement fairs; |
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Co-sponsorship, organizing, and hosting of town halls meeting on "facing crime and criminal justice in our community." |
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