MSCJ A701 Crime and Organizational Theory into Practice 3 crs.
This course introduces students to the dominant theories that help explain or give context to both criminal behavior and how organizations function. Particular emphasis is placed on applying the theoretical frameworks to policy formation and analysis.
MSCJ A702 Crisis Management and Media Relations 3 crs.
This course begins with the conceptual frameworks that explain how the modern 24/7 ‘mediated’ world impacts the way organizations, agencies, and firms function or relate to citizens and customers. Importantly, the class will show how agency leaders can avoid making problems or the perceptions of problems worse by mishandling or communicating. Case studies will be utilized to show students how to handle specific types of crisis management situations.
MSCJ A703 Budget Analysis 3 crs.
This class will teach students the core skills associated with the development and management of budgets for agencies or functional departments. Students will synthesize and apply budgeting concepts using Microsoft Excel through real-world examples and case studies
MSCJ A704 Assessing Organizational Performance 3 crs.
This course will build-off of previous coursework and learn more refined approaches to assessing the outcomes and methods organizations employ to meet their goals. This course will look at a broad range of topics and case studies from critical incidents to human resource issues.
MSCJ A705 Applied Data Analysis and Decision-Making 3 crs.
This class will teach students how to empirically analyze and present data for informed decision-making. Students will use Excel to analyze macro-level trend issues such as crime rates as well as micro-level intern-departmental problems. This course is designed to ensure that students are informed consumers of administration statistics and prepare them for the advanced quantitative electives offered later in the curriculum.
MSCJ A706 Ethics and the Administration of Justice 3 crs.
The course will provide students with an overview of ethics and ethical dilemmas which practitioners will face in the course of their profession. Using both classical and modern models students will develop skills necessary to identify and evaluate ethical and moral challenges in policing, bioethics, and corporate practices.
MSCJ A811 Survey of Justice Administration 3 crs.
This course comprises a synthesis and application of organizational and administrative theories and concepts to the administration of the criminal justice system. The course uses a ‘systems’ or ‘interactionist’ approach to facilitate the students’ sensitivities and insights into their understanding of the principles by which all organizations, Criminal Justice or otherwise, operate. Thus, this course considers the critical orientations in which the CJ administration operates: Historical, psychological, managerial, sociological, and political economy.
MSCJ A813 Critical Problems in Forensic Administration 3 crs.
Students will gain a broad overview in how to evaluate the value of forensic psychology and forensic science assets in criminal investigations. Students learn how to understand, choose and become knowledgeable consumers of forensic psychology topics such as eyewitness evidence, psychological profiling, risk analysis and use of force decision-making. Forensic science management issues such as the evaluation of criminalistics evidence, managing single and multiple forensic cases, evidence organization and categorization and lab back-logs will be discussed.
MSCJ A814 Policy Analysis and Program Evaluation 3 crs.
Students will gain insight into the realm of program and policy evaluation. The course will be aimed primarily at police program and policy evaluation, but concepts and methodological teachings are applicable to private sector program. Students will be exposed to fundamental models, theoretical constructs, and methodological approaches utilized within program and policy evals.
MSCJ A815 Special Topics in Justice Administration 3 crs.
This course is an overview of policy debates in criminal justice organizations, methods of resolving these debates and implementation of policy decisions. Students will work together in considering the background of policy debates, including the effect of their political contexts and, importantly, relevant empirical research and theories of criminal justice.
MSCJ A816 Applied Situational Crime Prevention 3 crs.
The Situational Crime Prevention (SCP) theoretical paradigm is the dominant construct under which modern crime control and prevention is based-on. This course is designed to advance the practitioner’s theoretical insights and extend those, through class projects, to immediately applying and evaluating the results. In this respect, the course can be viewed as an advanced applied methods course.
MSCJA A818 Responses to Crime Victimization 3 crs.
Students are provided with a thorough overview of victim services, both from a theoretical and academic perspective, and a practical, applied perspective. Topics covered include (1) the history and evolution victim rights services; (2) models of responses to victims; (3) types of victimizations practitioners encounter.
MSCJ A819 Sex Offenders and Offending 3 crs.
The course provides an interdisciplinary understanding of sex crimes and sex offenders drawing from theory and sex offender typologies. Following this background investigation, a series of key sex offender research is reviewed, along with policy implications: recidivism, specialization, offending over the life-course, sex offender registration and community notification, and the collateral consequences. Sex offender treatment programs and internet-based sex offending are also discussed.
MSCJ A821 Corporate Risk Administration and Management 3 crs.
The course examines the basic principles of administration/management of loss prevention, protection and security. Managers in all organizations, including those focusing on security, must perform certain essential functions including organizing, leading, planning and controlling. The ultimate mission of the security/loss prevention component of a security organization is to protect people, property, proprietary information and other assets of the respective business. Consequences of occurrences from outside the business are the responsibility of the security organization.
MSCJ A822 Premises Liability and Crime Foreseeability 3 crs.
The course integrates material from the fields of security, law, crime prevention and premises liability. Through the vehicle of civil law, premises security liability is the civil liability of property owners to provide reasonable and adequate security to patrons and other invitees onto their premises. Security standards, recommendations and best practices for a variety of businesses and industries are examined utilizing a series of case studies.
MSCJ A823 Law for Private Sector Security Professionals 3 crs.
This course focuses on the expanding body of law that guides the actions of private security professionals as they protect life and property in a post 9/11 America. Key elements of security law are presented in the course including a discussion of trends in security liability lawsuits and possible ways to reduce liability.
MSCJ A824 Security and Loss Prevention 3 crs.
This course provides an overview of the foremost security and loss prevention issues facing businesses and other organizations in 21st century America and reviews current management, fiscal, and physical countermeasures from internal and external threats employed by security professionals (e.g., chief executive officers, security managers and loss prevention specialists)
MSCJ A825 Emerging Trends in Security Technology 3 crs.
The course focuses on emerging trends, operating procedures, and the application of technology to meet the increased level of security in commercial, industrial and government organizations. It also examines legacy systems and new technologies, i.e., how do organizations effectively deploy changing security technological enhancements and upgrades to an existing security system? New technological advances in industry-specific environments are assessed using case studies.
MSCJ A826 International Risk Analysis 3 crs.
Social, political, and economic globalization sets the stage for this course. Increasingly, a firm’s success or failure is integrally related to factors in different countries, states, and jurisdiction. “Just in Time” logistics and the variances associated with political, economic, and social risks have a direct impact on both domestic and international firms. The purpose of this course is to provide students with a hands-on experience in conducting the kind of international risk analysis that is increasingly demanded.
MSCJ A831 Inspector General Administration 3 crs.
Persons employed in the capacity of inspector general investigators, internal auditors, and corporate management investigators will often be called upon to handle delicate and specialized investigations. This course will provide participants with an understanding of both government and private sector procurement and contract standards. Pertinent accounting and legislative standards will be reviewed as well as the forensic tools available to investigators. The specific challenges of ethic and sexual harassment investigations and compliance audits will be discussed.
MSCJ A832 Forensic Interviewing and Interrogation 3 crs.
Theory, knowledge, methodology, and practical application required for conducting a proper cognitive interview, obtaining a "pure version statement," analyzing statements, and understanding the basics of nationally accepted interviews structures such as Reid's Nine Steps to Interrogation will be covered. The course will also provide an understanding of scientific and technical underpinnings of the forensic interview process. Participants will review academically peer-reviewed articles concerning this field and proprietary private section non-published research.
MSCJ A833 Financial Fraud Investigations 3 crs.
The course will provide students with a general/introductory understanding of forensic accounting and the basic skills needed to perform forensic accounting/ financial fraud investigations. Students will receive instruction in: identifying fraud schemes, an explanation of the legal elements of fraud (for state and federal jurisdictions), as well as the necessary analytical techniques utilized in uncovering fraud and its prevention through effective detection systems.
MSCJ A835 Specialized Investigations: Retail Fraud 3 crs.
The course provides insight into the mechanics of various forms of retail theft, including but not limited to: cashier theft, return fraud, back door receiving theft, vendor/merchandiser theft, external theft types such price tag manipulations, collusion with employees, supply line/distribution channel thefts, and single and multi-unit level accounting frauds. A review of research about the thought process of theft offenders will be conducted to gain insight into the motivations, and lack of concern/fear of countermeasures of white-collar offenders.
MSCJ A836 Organized Retail Crime 3 crs.
The course will provide participants with an understanding of the operationalization’s of organized retail crime (ORC), current technological and non-technological countermeasures, and the current status of ORC legislation as well as the future of deterrent efforts. Organized retail crime is now understood and accepted as a true crime type by state and federal legislative bodies.
MSCJ A841 Homeland Security and Emergency Management Anchor Course 3 crs.
The organization and operation of Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS) will be examined. The course covers major topics related to homeland security and emergency management including a history and organization of DHS, a review of key legislation, laws, and directives, introduction to basic concepts of infrastructure protection, risk management, threat assessment and prioritization, jurisdiction/coordination between agencies, issues in communication, hazard response teams, contingency of operations planning (COOP), basic threats and counter-terrorism strategies, public health and emergency preparedness.
MSCJ A844 Fundamentals of Emergency Management 3 crs.
The course provides an introduction to emergency management and the role of the emergency manager in dealing with a variety of threats. We will compare and contrast different events, learn the history of emergency management, understand new and emerging disasters and hazards, learn the overlapping phases of disaster, and understand the roles of different levels of government. Emergency management represents a challenging field because many people may ignore warnings, or are unable to prepare for disasters.
MSCJ A847 Emergency Crisis and Victim Response 3 crs.
The purpose of this course is to learn about the types of events that lead to victimization outside of interpersonal crime, the effects of these events on victims, and the skills and resources in place to provide immediate and on-going crisis intervention for the people who survive these events and for those are left behind when lives are lost.
MSCJ A852 Cyber Surveillance Law and Governance 3 crs.
The purpose of this course is to extend the students understanding of the legal and oversight frameworks that define and delimit both private and sector practitioners with respect to domains of cybercrime and surveillance. The course begins with a review of privacy and uses that as an entree to understanding the theories of governance. From there the course applies these concepts to three distinct domains of application, law enforcement, public (civil) records, and private records.
MSCJ A853 Forensic Management of Digital Evidence 3 crs.
The course provides an overview of digital evidence and computer crime by focusing on a systematic approach to investigating a crime based on the scientific method. Topics are data recovery, remote storage, file systems of various systems and procedure and tools for properly collecting and examining digital evidence from computers. This course demonstrates how computers are extensions of traditional crime scenes and how the associated digital evidence can be useful in a variety of investigations including computer intrusions and violent crimes.
MSCJ A854 Geo-Spatial and Crime Mapping Analysis 3 crs.
The course explores leading research in the field describes how crime and geospatial mapping is evolving to take advantage of modernized crime and capacities of computing power. This advanced quantitative methods course incorporates GIS (geographic information systems) into risk analysis and criminal justice. The course synthesizes theory and application into a hands-on approach to many of the issues a risk management, loss prevention, or crime analyst will face in pursuit of their work.
MSCJ A855 Cyber Criminology 3 crs.
This course provides an introduction for novices, and a deeper understanding of cyber deviance and its control. Theory is used to understand the nature of cybercrime. Emphasis will be given to criminals and victims, law enforcement, state and federal laws, criminological theories, and the development of research topics in cybercrimes.
MSCJ A856 Cybercrime and Digital Law Enforcement 3 crs.
The emergence of modern information-based societies in which the exercise of economic, political, and social power increasingly depends on the opportunities to access, manipulate, and use information and information infrastructure has created opportunities for new crimes and new threats to civil society and global security, as well as for new law enforcement and national security responses. This course explores how a "networked" world has bred new crimes and new responses, and investigates how information and communication technology (ICT) has become a tool, a target, and a place of criminal activity and national security threats, as well as a mechanism of response.
MSCJ A861 Forensic Science: Crime Scene to Courtroom 3 crs.
The course will engage students in supervised research in forensic Science. The goal of this course is to allow the student to demonstrate their research capability under the supervision of university faculty.
MSCJ A862 Crime Lab Management: Utilizing Science for Justice 3 crs.
This course presents an overview of crime laboratory management. As an organization, the crime laboratory does not fit neatly into any particular mold. It has components of both the public and private sectors, and, in many cases, has civilian and sworn employees. For this reason it is important for crime laboratory directors and other administrators charged with the management of a forensic science entity to understand how this entity fits into the criminal justice system.
MSCJ A863 Quality Assurance/Quality Control in the Crime Laboratory 3 crs.
The course provides an overview of key components of Quality Assurance in the crime laboratory. The students will be introduced to what is required in the planning and implementation of a quality system in the crime laboratory including the development of a quality manual, the need to produce sound scientific data using appropriate standards and controls, developing written procedures and method validation. The course will also assist the student in understanding how to perform a quality system audit.
MSCJ A864 Current Topics Affecting Forensic Science 3 crs.
This course is an overview of policy debates in forensic science organizations, methods of resolving these debates and implementation of policy decisions. Students will work together in considering the background of policy debates, including the effect of their political contexts and, importantly, relevant empirical research.