Special Topics in Criminal Justice

Catalog description

This course is a focused examination of emerging and dynamic problems or issues facing law enforcement, the judicial system, and the correction's system. The course will examine how the selected special topics affect each of these three components of the criminal justice system. This course will cover specific subject matter in depth that was only covered cursorily in lower level criminal justice courses as well as subject matter not ordinarily covered in the existing curricula. Examples include, but are not limited to, alternative punishment schemes, emerging patterns of violence, organized crime, white-collar crime, cyber-crime, corruption in the criminal justice system, euthanasia and mercy killing, victimology and victim services, civil disobedience and the rule of law, women and minorities in the justice system, child abuse, sex-trafficking, insanity pleas, Homeland Security and terrorism, death penalty, prison overcrowding and community corrections, serial killers and mass murderers, etc.