Introduction to Criminal Justice

This course fulfills a major requirement for JPS and Criminal Justice majors.

Course Description:

The purpose of this course is to prepare the student for further study about the Criminal Justice System. This will be accomplished by laying a philosophical foundation for the study that will be useful not only to students intending to major in this field, but will be useful to anyone who takes their citizenship responsibilities seriously. This course serves as an opportunity for students to become better acquainted with problems relating society and the law. The student will better understand how we live in a society as independent citizens, subjects of the law, and yet, as free human beings. The primary problem presented in this course is that of connecting the morality and the law.

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Course Objectives:

Upon completion of the course each student:

1. The student will be expected to develop an understanding of how criminal law is used in a social environment while respecting both the rights of individuals and the sovereignty of society.

2. Thee student will be expected to comprehend various abstract concepts of legality and relate these views of legality to various perspectives of morality. 

3. The students are expected to be able to articulate the nature of the legal/moral debate from Hart/Devlin to present.

4. The student is expected to understand the nature of discretion in law enforcement.  While discretion is inevitable, encouraging or discouraging discretion is a philosophical issue for each police department and each police officer.

5. The student is expected to gain an appreciation for the philosophical foundations of our constitution and its relation to our Criminal Justice system.
6. The student is expected to understand the role of law in society and explain what type of criminal Justice system would be best in our society.

7. The student will be given an opportunity to examine the conceptual roots of their own moral standards as they relate to implementation of the law.

8. The student is expected to understand the theoretical foundations for Criminal Justice are law and morality.  Ultimately implementation of a moral legal system is the responsibility of each Criminal Justice professional.

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Five Academic Principles

 1.          Innovative, Student-Centered Learning:  This course is unlike most Introductions to                Criminal  Justice courses.  Its approach is innovative in that rather than describing how the components integrate and fail to integrate; this course is designed to provide the students with a more fundamental basis to Criminal Justice.  The students are required to cope with difficult problems that cause them to incorporate their own ideas of morality and the law.  From their personal insights they can analyze law and policy that has been made into law.

 2.          Challenge to engage in creative and critical thinking:  One of the most difficult tasks in Criminal Justice education for the students is to determine the relationship between morality and the law.  In this course the student is challenged to develop ideas of what they mean by moral, attempt to determine why they are moral, and then attempt to apply there concepts of morality in a legal system that respects rights of individuals and protects the rights of individuals.

 3.          Cultural and Global Perspectives:  This course typically does not develop a strong focus on global or cultural issues beyond the United States.  The explicit mission of the JPS Department is the domestic public policy scene, and international and cross-cultural components are only infrequently employed.  However, diversity of viewpoints is encouraged and students are invited to add to all JPS classes from their own life experiences and outlooks.

 4.          Values and Ethical Dimension of Knowledge: The law and doing what is both right in a moral dimension and practical in a pragmatic dimension are clearly included in this course. The Quaker ethos is incorporated, along with professional ethical value systems.  Justice and Policy, as taught at Guilford College, as an ethical enterprise.  In that vein, gender, race, class and ethnicity are studied as important components of this JPS course.

 5.    Focus on Practical Application: Of all of the academic departments of Guilford College, JPS  is dedicated to answering the call for teaching “things civil and useful.” As with each JPS  course, this one relates to actual occupations and civic enterprises in American public service.

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 Course Requirements:

 Each student is expected  to attend class and be prepared to discuss the reading assignment.  WE WILL BEGIN WITH THE INTRODUCTION OF THE TEXT AND PROCEED WITH THE MATERIAL AT A RATE CONDUCIVE TO ADEQUATELY LEARNING THE MATERIAL.  The reading is sophisticated.  You may need to read it several times.  Fortunately, the readings are not long and lend themselves to being read over and over.  Once is never enough.

 You will be required to complete four or five papers.  Instructions for this assignment are included in this packet.  You will be receiving additional instructions.

 Every week there will be one quiz on a chapter from Sense and Nonsense About Crime and Drugs.  There will be at least ten quizzes, and the purpose of the quiz is to determine whether you have read the chapter and understood it.  This is a wonderful book that cut through many of the myths we have about crime and drugs.  I am confident you will enjoy it.

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 Grading:

Your grade will be determined as follows:

Lecture Quizzes ……………………………… 50%

Papers 6% each for a total of 30%

Sense and Nonsense Quizzes.. 10%

Classroom participation………………………...10%

A 100-93

B   92-85

C   84-77

D   76-70

F    69-0

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Readings: 

Week 1 ………  Skolnik, Jerome. Police Discretion

Sense and Nonsense About Crime and Drugs, Chapter 1

Handout on the Six Concepts of Law

Week 2 ………….Mill, John Stuart. On Liberty

Sense and Nonsense About Crime and Drugs, Chapter 2

Week 3  …….Sense and Nonsense About Crime and Drugs, Chapter 3

Week 4 ……… Devlin, Lord Patrick. Morality and the Law

Sense and Nonsense About Crime and Drugs, Chapter 4

Week 5……Sense and Nonsense About Crime and Drugs, Chapter 5

Week 6……Hart, H.L.A. Immorality and Treason

Sense and Nonsense About Crime and Drugs, Chapter 6

Week 7……Sense and Nonsense About Crime and Drugs, Chapter 7

Week 8…….Kohlberg Handout

Sense and Nonsense About Crime and Drugs, Chapter 8

Week 9…….Dworkin, Ronald. Lord Devlin and the Enforcement of Morals

Sense and Nonsense About Crime and Drugs, Chapter 9

Week 10…….Sense and Nonsense About Crime and Drugs, Chapter 10

Week 11…….Melville, Herman, Billy Budd

Sense and Nonsense About Crime and Drugs, Chapter 11

Week 12 …….Exclusionary Rule

Week 13…….Sense and Nonsense About Crime and Drugs, Chapter 12-14

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Handouts

In the table below are handouts and power point presentations used throughout this course.  You will be given instructions as to which ones you should review or print out as the course proceeds.  These can be used as a preview to a lecture, a review of a lecture, or in review for a test.

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