Description

Course Description (as it appears in catalog)

Criminology – Students are introduced to theoretical explanations of crime, criminality, and society’s response to antisocial and law violating behavior. Theories of crime causation are used to understand crime patterns, evaluate trends, and understand how social scientific inquiry impact research, theory, and public policy. (3 lecture hours)

By the end of this course, you should be able to:

1. Review the social construction of crime, deviance, and delinquency [M1]
2. Interpret national crime facts and patterns [M3]
3. Summarize classical theory and its impact on public and criminal justice policy [M5]
4. Summarize positivist theory and its impact on public and criminal justice policy [M1]
5. Identify theories of crime causation [M5-M10]
6. Identify the principles and applications of modern biological theories [M1]
7. Explain principles of psychological and psychiatric theories [M6]
8. Describe the historical and empirical development of sociological theories [M1 & M2]
9. Illustrate how social structure theories have influenced social policy related to youth violence and poverty [M3]
10. Summarize the development of social process and development theories [M8]
11. Illustrate how social process and development theories have influenced public policy [M3]
12. Summarize the history of social conflict theory [M10]
13. Describe elements of peacemaking, feminist, convict, and postmodern criminology [M9]
14. Evaluate the goals, outcomes, and philosophical positions (liberal, conservative, and radical) associated with a modern criminal justice system[M4]
15. Explain how conflict theories have influenced shared consensus and a modern crime control model [M9]
16. Apply classical and positivist theory to an examination of violent, property, and white-collar crime [M11-M15]
17. Analyze how the social construction of crime, deviance, and delinquency are related to public order crime [M4]
18. Evaluate the need for new theory related to cybercrime and new innovations in offending [M11-M15]
19. Explain the role of comparative criminology in understanding terrorism and other newly emerging threats [M2]

This open educational resource (OER) is designed to supplement and coincide with content populated within the College’s learning management system (LMS); that is, Blackboard. Students must complete readings as they appear within a particular chapter/ and submit all related work via the LMS.