Honors | Introduction to Criminal Justice
P100 | 14682 | Leon Pettiway

MW 11:15am-12:30pm

Criminal Justice refers to the structure, functions, and processes
police, the courts, and corrections. The purpose of this course is
to analyze the nature of crime and the processes of justice in the
United States, to examine the historical and constitutional
foundations of the American system of justice, and to consider
its strengths as well as its weaknesses.

As such, the course considers the definition of crime and law, the
nature and extent of crime, the constitutional foundations of law
and justice, and the agents of the law (i.e., examination of
policing, the court system, and agents of punishment, the
correctional system). In that regard, themes such as the due process
and crime control models of criminal justice, the construction of
crime, law, and justice, the impact that drug abuse and the "war on
drugs" have on crime and criminal justice processing, the role of
race, class, and gender in criminal justice as cross-cultural
perspectives in the administration of justice, and public policies
with respect crime control and punishment.