Graduate Program

Doctoral Degree

The doctoral program is organized around four broad areas of inquiry: 

The Nature of Crime and Delinquency
Law and Society  
Criminal Justice Systems and Processes
Cross-Cultural Studies  

The program is designed to prepare future scholars for academic appointments or research positions.  Students with either a bachelor’s degree or a master’s degree may apply to the doctoral program.

The Nature of Crime and Delinquency
This area focuses on descriptive and explanatory frameworks for studying behaviors considered offensive to society.

Law and Society
This area looks at the interactions of social forces and legal processes, investigating such broad questions as “What shapes the law?” and “In what ways do those institutions and systems we term legal differ from other institutions and systems?”

Criminal Justice Systems and Processes
This area focuses on criminal justice administration. Research in this area examines the structural, organizational, and individual factors that influence criminal justice decision-making. Emphasis is on police, courts, and corrections in the adult and juvenile criminal justice systems.

Cross-cultural Studies
Cross-cultural studies is concerned with roles culture plays in contexts where individual, group, and institutional identities and practices arise, remain static, and change. Research in cross-cultural studies also considers the roles of criminal justice and legal systems in defining, controlling, and generating behaviors, identities, and groups, as well as relationships among them.