ABOUT THE COLLEGE

Redefining Criminal Justice

At the College of Criminal Justice at Northeastern University the world of criminal justice is much more than the police officer, corrections officer, or security guard. The boundaries have expanded beyond these traditional roles to reflect a new, global community. This new approach recognizes that criminal justice in the new millenium is about more than the criminal, it involves understanding the victim and the community: repairing harm, reducing fear, and rebuilding safe communities to assure justice in spirit and in act. To best understand and meet the needs of this global community, we foster an active learning approach for our students that encourages intellectual, experiential, and ethical growth. Recognized by U.S. News & World Report in 2003 as being the number one institution to integrate classroom learning with real-world experience, Northeastern University provides the perfect home for this unique approach to understanding crime and justice.

This means taking Analytic Approaches to facilitate Smart Choices about justice; it means using Research to Inform Poilcy and cultivating Reciprocal Relationships between Theory and Practice. Above all, it means using Human Services to Promote Humanity.

Smart Choices

Criminal Justice education at Northeastern University looks beyond the political rhetoric of being "tough" or "soft" on crime. We seek to understand why some responses to crime are effective while others are not. Doing this requires cooperating with other disciplines-- information technology, psychology, sociology, poiltical science, business, and law -- to find innovative responses to crime and public safety that work. Most important, it means looking for ways to reduce crime that are both effective and ethical.

Analytic Approaches

At Northeastern, we recognize that criminal justice today requires looking beyond the superficial and simple to understand complex issues with sensitivity and sophistication. Crime mapping, gun tracing, sophisticated investigative techniques, and multi-modal adult and youth intervention programs are among the tools that criminal justice professionals can employ to make communities safer.

These cutting-edge apporaches use tools from other disciplines, such as mathematics or information technology, to advance the science of criminal justice, and this translates into powerful problem solving and pioneering responses to ongoing criminal justice issues. It also means that "status quo" responses are no longer "good enough" to protect the public safety and promote healthy communities.

Research and Policy

The College of Criminal Justice has had a longstanding commitment to improving justice system agencies, including private security. The College actively engages external partners in a continuuing conversation about research, community service, and slaient policy questions. Part of this dialogue is supported by an ongoing program of applied social science research. Much of this research focuses on evaluation of existing government crime control programs and policies to determine whether they work, as well as inquiries about the etiology and prevention of crime. In addition, much of our research examines the unintended consequences of policy: institutionalized racism, disparate sentencing and incarceration, and factors that impede a community's ability to build social capital. In every case, we approach the research with ethical sensitivity and scientific rigor.

Theory and Practice

Just as Northeastern University is committed to academic excellence through the integration of classroom learning with real-world experience in the Cooperative Education Program, the College of Criminal Justice faculty is dedicated to fostering a reciprocal relationship between criminal justice theory and practice.

Promoting Humanity

The College of Criminal Justice recognizes that criminal justice, at its foundation, is about dealing with individuals and communities with humanity. Throughout history, communities have grappled with how to ethically and equitably treat individuals who break society's laws. "Sound bite" criminal justice has simply failed to produce the desired results for communities. To reduce crime and protect communities, criminal justice professsionals need to understand what affects human behavior, and what is most likely to make communities safe. This means broadening the agencies involved in the community of justice to include not only police, probation, and corrections, but alternative programs and social services aimed at positively changing human behavior through education, mentoring and humanitarian support.