Courses

The listing of a course description here does not guarantee a course’s being offered in a particular semester. Please refer to the published schedule of classes on MyBU Student Portal for confirmation a class is actually being taught and for specific course meeting dates and times.

• MET CJ 101: Principles of Criminal Justice
  This course provides a comprehensive overview of the criminal justice system (law enforcement, the courts, and corrections) while developing students' critical thinking skills. In addition to class lectures, the course provides multiple venues for learning, to include group activities, guest lectures, a prison tour, and carefully selected films that highlight some of the most contentious issues in criminal justice today.
• MET CJ 209: Crime and Delinquency
  Analysis of criminal and delinquent behavior. Evaluation of current theories and research into causes and sociological implications of these behavior patterns. Examination of criminal justice systems, including police, courts, and corrections.
• MET CJ 251: Police and Society
  This course provides a foundation for understanding the implications of policing in the United States. The course examines the historical development of policing in the U.S., the role of police in our society, police organizations and decision-making, policing strategies, as well as issues of authority and accountability. Throughout the course, several contemporary issues and controversies facing the police will be discussed including: police discrimination, police use of force practices, and other special topics.
• MET CJ 271: Corrections: Concepts, Systems, and Issues
  This course provides an overview of models of punishment and rehabilitation from the perspectives of the humanities and social sciences, including a review of correctional practices and procedures, institutional treatment, probation, parole, prison conditions, programs for juveniles, and comparative systems. Correction administration topics are covered including personnel, legal, operating practices, overcrowding, and planning.
• MET CJ 300: Applied Social Science Theory
  Applied Social Science Theory introduces students to major authors and seminal works that continue to inform theory and research in social sciences. The focus is on reading primary source materials to examine not only the major conclusions of these authors, but the arguments they use to justify those conclusions. Effective Spring 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Social Inquiry II, Critical Thinking, Research and Information Literacy. Students cannot take both METCJ300 and METSO300 for credit.
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  • Social Inquiry II
  • Critical Thinking
  • Research and Information Literacy
• MET CJ 305: Violence in the Family
  This course will look at American family violence across the life span including child abuse, teen dating violence, wife battering and elder abuse. Physical, emotional and sexual abuse will be examined. We will consider how family violence differs by class and ethnic group and its differential impact on women. Institutional responses to family violence in the legal, medical and social service systems will be included as well as the role played by the women's shelter movement. Ideological supports for family violence in gender expectations, religious teaching and the media will also be studied.
• MET CJ 344: Drugs and Society
  Introduction to the sociology of a wide range of legal and illicit drugs. Examines social definitions of drugs and conditions of their use. Considers deviant drug use and effects of social control on definitions and use.
• MET CJ 351: Criminal Law
  Theory and practice of criminal law, including sanctions, individual liability, limitations on state action, criminal and victim rights, evidence, defense, deterrence, mandatory sentencing, decriminalization, intent, entrapment, vagueness, and capital punishment. Case studies of recent court decisions.
• MET CJ 352: Courts, Society, and Criminal Procedure
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: MET CJ 351; or consent of instructor.
  Federal, state, and local criminal courts and their relationship to contemporary social and political issues. Historical background of the current criminal court system. Institutional functions of the courts. Role of the courts in reducing crime. Judicial process and criminal procedure, case studies and court decisions.
• MET CJ 491: Directed Study in Criminal Justice
  Independent study on special projects under faculty guidance.
• MET CJ 510: Special Topics in Criminal Justice
  Fall 2023 Topic: Violence and Threat Assessment
  
  Based on the seminal work of the United States Secret Service, threat assessment is a systematic strategy for identifying, assessing, and managing potential violent offenders off the pathway to violence. Relying on case examples and studies of school shooters, mass murderers, political assassins, and lone actor terrorists, students will learn the principles of threat assessment, review research findings, and explore ongoing developments in the field through practical exercises. This course will provide an understanding of the genesis and warning signs of targeted violence for the wide variety of law enforcement officers, mental health practitioners, school administrators, and public officials who are charged with maintaining community safety.
• MET CJ 511: Rehabilitation and Re-Integration
  Community re-integration following imprisonment has long been recognized as a significant problem. Longer sentences and rapid changes have created new problems for both returning inmates and those who provide services both inside and outside the criminal justice system. This course will examine rehabilitation philosophy in theory and practice. Lectures and seminars will address such issues as: the special problems in providing rehabilitation and education in the correctional system, the effect of inmate subculture on rehabilitation, and balancing demands for custody and rehabilitation.
• MET CJ 512: Sexual Violence
  This course will engage the topics of sexual deviance and sexual trauma through multiple lens. These lenses will include psychological, sociological, criminal justice, public health and social justice perspectives. The course will explore multiple facets of understanding sexual deviance and sexual trauma including legal and philosophical perspectives, historical activism, understanding and treatment of sexual offending, and survivor responses. The roles of multiple systems including the media, mental health organization and the criminal justice system will be taken into account. This course includes ongoing group work that will engage critical inquiry, addressing relevant topics in sexual trauma in practical ways. Students will utilize knowledge of theory and research methodology to pursue real world responses to issues of sexual violence and trauma.
• MET CJ 520: Violence and Trauma
  Violence and Trauma examines the psychological impact of crime, terror and disasters on society and the individuals who are members of it. The class is geared toward students in the social sciences including Psychology, Urban Affairs, Criminal Justice, and Sociology. A variety of traumas will be examined (e.g., childhood abuse, domestic violence and crime, war combat, terrorism, and natural disasters). The course examines the social, cultural and political environments in which trauma, trauma research and treatment occur. This course provides an introduction and overview of the field of traumatic stress studies including the nature of trauma, responses to trauma and treatment for disorders of traumatic stress.
• MET CJ 531: Youth Crime Problems
  Analysis of policy issues concerning juvenile justice and youth crime. Scope and nature of youth crime and the young offender. Juvenile justice procedures, programs, and institutional roles. Considers delinquency prevention programs, violent offenders, dispositional alternatives, and crimes against youth.
• MET CJ 570: Criminology and Crime Policy
  This course explores potential answers to complex and important questions about criminal behavior by drawing on the social science of criminology. Criminology is the interdisciplinary study of the development of law, criminal phenomena and societal responses to crime. The course has two primary focuses: 1) to explore and evaluate major explanations or theories of crime and 2) understand and evaluate the policy implications of major crime problems. Because criminology is interdisciplinary, students will examine theories that are grounded in a range of academic perspectives, including sociological, biological, political, psychological and economic explanations for crime. These theories will be centered on important public policy debates about a host of contemporary problems, including: firearm violence, high post- incarceration recidivism, opioid use disorder crisis and human trafficking. Course lectures and discussions focus on the historical development of the theories, their major assumptions and propositions, their relevance for public policy and practice. As the course progresses through each explanation for crime, students will have the opportunity to critically evaluate the validity of different explanations for crime as well as criminal justice policies and practices that they support.
• MET CJ 571: Criminal Justice Administration and Ethics
  This course will introduce students to the concepts of criminal justice administration and ethics. Students will learn about: the management of justice organizations in the United States, and the various debates as to how best to carry out crime control. Topics covered include: organizational theory and structure, professional ethics, leadership and management styles, organizational deviance and socialization, employee motivation, and management responses to stress and burnout. The course is designed to help students understand the characteristics of effective leadership and policy implementation in the field of criminal justice. Students will also have the opportunity to analyze ethical dilemmas commonly confronted in criminal justice work.
• MET CJ 590: Research and Evaluation Methods
  The skills used in research method have become central to many positions within criminal justice administration and related areas. Not only are professionals required to understand and critically evaluate the program and policy science in their field to make decisions, they often employ methodological skills in program and policy development, implementation, management and assessment. This course takes students through the research process from question development to administration and reporting. It emphasizes applied research situations and settings and specifically program evaluation and assessment. After examining various research design models, the course focuses on specific techniques that inform both quantitative and qualitative evaluation studies. These include sampling procedures, survey design, interview techniques, participant observation and case studies and process evaluations.
• MET CJ 591: Applied Analytical Methods
  Evidence-based and data-driven approaches to crime problems are the industry standard among criminal justice agencies and non-governmental organizations. This course will cover a variety of statistical "tools" from three broad areas: (1) descriptive statistics, (2) inferential statistics and hypothesis testing, and (3) measures of association. Students will learn how to develop research questions, describe and draw conclusions from quantitative data, and interpret statistical research findings, and be able to present these findings to a variety of audiences in a clear and accurate way -- to be able to "tell a story" with numbers. In addition, students will develop a proficiency working with large data sets and conducting analysis with a critical lens, using the analytical software -- Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) -- commonly used in criminal justice and related fields.
• MET CJ 610: Cybercrime
  This course is designed to help students understand and apply the nature of computer crime in the criminal justice field. Several theories (both micro-level and macro-level) will be presented and will be analyzed in depth and applied to computer crime cases both past and present. Students will see how major theories have been re-developed to be applied to computer crime, and by using these theories, students will both develop and explore different strategies for future law enforcement. Students will be presented with common types of fraudulent schemes, as well as several laws that have been enacted and developed specifically for computer crime. In addition, causes, victimization, legal issues, control strategies, and societal costs regarding the "computer-crime" problem will be explored and evaluated.