The mission of the Bachelor of Arts in Criminal Justice and Criminology is to prepare future leaders in the field of Criminal Justice with the knowledge to understand and the skills to utilize resources for creative and effective problem-solving.

Graduates of the UMKC's Undergraduate Criminal Justice & Criminology Degree Program will:

• Demonstrate knowledge of the Criminal Justice System, its subsystems (the institutions and structures of police, courts, and corrections) and their interactions (processes).
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Demonstrate knowledge of the major theoretical explanations for individual motivations to commit crime as well as the nature/occurrence of crime which includes the prominent schools of criminological thoughts - the Positivist, Classical and Chicago Schools of Criminology - and emergent theories.


• Demonstrate the ability to analyze criminal justice literature, through reading comprehension and interpretation.
  

The B.A. degree requires a total of 36 credit hours in addition to the general education requirements for a degree in The College of Arts and Sciences.

For students selecting the CJC major, required courses are the following:

CJC 101	Introduction to Criminal Justice	3
CJC 319	Theoretical Criminology	3
CJC 363*	Introduction to Statistics in Sociology/Criminal Justice	3
CJC 470WI**	Capstone: Criminal Justice and Criminology	3
CJC 483 or CJC 486	Methods of Sociological Research Methods of Program Evaluation	3 3

* MATH 235 is not a substitute for CJC 363.
**Students are expected to take CJC 470WI after they finish all other CJC courses. CJC 470WI is open only to CJC majors in their last semester of coursework who have passed the WEPT exam.

Two of the following are also required:

CJC 250	Introduction to Policing	3
CJC 260	Principles and Practices of Criminal Courts	3
CJC 265	Delinquency and Juvenile Justice	3
CJC 270	Principles of Corrections	3

Students must receive a grade of no lower than C- in the core required courses (CJC 101, 319, 363, 483, and 470WI) and achieve an overall GPA of 2.0 in the major. Students with more than one academic major may apply only 9 credit hours from another degree program toward the CJC major.

It is suggested that students broaden their course choices by selecting related offerings in English (especially those courses that stress writing skills), philosophy, history, geography, political science, psychology, sociology and public administration.

Transfer students may be credited with a maximum of 15 Criminal Justice and Criminology credit hours (the introductory course plus 12 hours of electives) from other institutions. However, please note that students transferring from community colleges (or equivalent institutions) must fit the following distribution of 15 hours credited toward the major: The introductory course, 2 courses equivalent to the Pick Two option, and only two Electives.

In selecting courses to fulfill the 15 credit hours of CJC electives, CJC majors and minors should be aware of the following restrictions:

* No more than 6 credit hours of Directed Studies in Criminal Justice and Criminology (CJC 490) may be used to fulfill CJC elective requirements.
* Participation in only one Internship in Criminal Justice (CJC 491) may be used to fulfill CJC elective requirements.
*No more than 3 credit hours of Topics in Criminal Justice (CJC 492) may be used to fulfill CJC elective requirements.

Students who are pursuing the CJC major or minor are strongly encouraged to meet with a CJC adviser each semester to review their progress toward degree completion, as well as to determine the appropriateness of coursework selected.