Cultural Awareness and Diversity in Criminal Justice

Catalog description

This course provides students with a background and understanding of the importance of cultural awareness and diversity within our criminal justice system. The course offers a comprehensive examination of existing influences of culture, race, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation in multicultural communities within criminal justice. The course also looks at the importance of embracing community partnerships with law enforcement as a means to develop successful strategies to alleviate crime trends within multicultural communities and improve professionalism, as well as enhanced and enriched communication with members of diverse groups. Other course topics to be discussed in a broader context include police/community mutual stereotypes, implicit biases, the importance of verbal de-escalation in law enforcement, as well as the importance of improved cross-cultural competency, and improved cross-racial and interethnic relations.