The Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice was established (as a program) in the 1960s as a response to the urban crisis of that decade. The department’s initial narrow focus on training law enforcement officers was superseded by a broader vision of education and research consistent with its place in a college of liberal arts and sciences at a research university. Research and scholarship
in criminal justice and criminology range from the purely theoretical to the applied. The field is dedicated to expanding sound knowledge in order to increase public safety and achieve a just society. Wayne State University is one of 110 public research extensive universities (and another 50 private research extensive universities (REU)) among more than 3,000 institutions of higher learning in the United States. It is one of the few universities in this select group that is also a public urban university. As such, the department has an active and ongoing research mission that is shaped by pressing public concerns and a teaching mission of imparting knowledge to a diverse student body. The tenured and tenure-track faculty members of the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice include productive scholars who conduct research, publish, and teach on a variety of criminal justice, criminology, and crime-related subjects. Students majoring in criminal justice at the undergraduate and master’s levels represent the diversity of southeastern Michigan’s population. They generally aspire to professional careers of public service in corrections, counseling, forensic science, juvenile justice, law, law enforcement, and other areas, and some further their education in criminology and criminal justice to enter careers in research and teaching.
