Criminal justice, often considered together with criminology, is the study of criminal offending, victimization, and processing of offenders by the criminal justice system. Criminal justice considers a broad range of topics that include: identifying motivations and opportunities for criminal offending, predicting patterns of offending, examining patterns of offending and victimization across different groups in society, evaluating the effectiveness of various crime control policies, and examining the primary components of the the criminal and juvenile justice systems. The major is an interdisciplinary program offering students a thorough understanding of criminal law, the social forces related to crime and delinquency, the evaluation of crime control policy, or the operation of courts, law enforcement agencies, and correctional institutions.

Our program offers both a major and a minor degree and contributes to the Addiction Studies concentration program. Criminal Justice at OU is an interdisciplinary program grounded in the theoretical, methodological, and applied policy traditions of criminology & criminal justice, as well as those related disciplines that have contributed to its core knowledge (i.e., sociology, political science, public administration, law, philosophy, and psychology). The OU criminal justice major has three defining features: (1) a required interdisciplinary component, (2) a required internship, and (3) a required capstone course. All students-majors and minors-must maintain a C+ in each Criminal Justice course to remain in good standing in the Criminal Justice program.

For more information, please contact [email protected] to request our Informational Brochure and Criminal Justice Program Manual.

The OU Pledge is the university’s commitment to providing undergraduate students with the opportunity for meaningful, hands-on learning. Criminal Justice students in OU’s College of Arts and Science engage in experiential learning through their participation in programs, teaching assistantships, research experiences as well as student and professional organizations, including:

• Research assistantships for undergraduates 
• Presenting research at academic conferences
• Criminal Justice Club
• Collaborative capstone courses with community partners such as Michigan State Police and Michigan Department of Corrections
• Research collaborations with professors
• Criminal Justice-related field trips including:
• Michigan State Police Headquarters       
• Oakland and Macomb County Jails
• Ohio State Reformatory
• Charles Wright Museum
• Macomb County Communications and Technology Center
• Oakland County Medical Examiner

PROGRAM OVERVIEWProgram RequirementsMinor RequirementsAPPLY NOWCRJ 4950 REQUIRED INTERNSHIP