Criminal Justice Policy: Police Training Inside-Out

Catalog description

This course is a dynamic partnership between the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police, Duquesne University and the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections that brings police recruits together with incarcerated men to study as peers in a three-credit course behind prison walls. The seminar proceeds as a weekly meeting, where ?outside students? (i.e., police officers and/or recruits) and an equal number of ?inside students? (i.e., incarcerated men) attend class together inside a prison. The addition of an innovative experiential learning curriculum to traditional academy training provides recruits with an opportunity to develop a more nuanced professional vision during their initial socialization. For the incarcerated men, the coursework holds the secondary benefit of empowering them to see the humanity in a group of people (i.e., the police), whom up to that point they had, recognized only as adversaries. Moreover, the curriculum maintains a rigorous public safety focus with an emphasis on restorative justice, while functioning as a space for dialogue where the two groups can come to see each other?and themselves?as people with vested interests in their shared communities. More traditional university students may be granted permission to take the course at the discretion of the instructor, and permission of the Sociology Chair.