Welcome!

The Department's new Ph.D. program is the State of Illinois' first and only doctoral program in criminal justice. Specifically, the program seeks to:

	Create advanced research training for students interested in criminal justice
	Place graduates in academic and research positions locally and across the nation
	Advance our scientific knowledge regarding crime, law and criminal justice policy
	Strengthen the University's research commitment to Chicago and other urban areas

The Department of Criminal Justice includes some of the leading scholars in the country and its graduate curriculum is unique in several ways:

	Addresses qualitative as well as quantitative methods of research and evaluation
	Emphasizes community processes and the intersection between informal and formal mechanisms of social control
	Brings attention to race and gender in research on violence and on systemic efforts to achieve social and criminal justice.

Program Concentrations:

Law and Society, which examines the nature of formal and informal social norms, their development, use and variation across cultures, societies, and over time.

Criminology, which examines the theories of deviance, crime causation, criminal behavior and explanations of rule-breaking from psychological, sociological, economic, and political perspectives.

Organizations, which explore organizations and agencies whose principal function is the application of law, and theories explaining practices of decision-making and how organizations are created, maintain and develop resources, and relate to internal and external environments.