Criminal Justice, Institutional and Community-Based Corrections Concentration, B.A.

Program Description:

Incarceration in the United States has become one of the most controversial and divisive issues facing American society. Statistical portrayals of incarceration levels are often presented out of context and consequently distorted leaving the body politic with a false sense of understanding of the complexities faced within the correctional system. Corrections personnel and managers are required to employ the accepted methods and practices used for effective and safe offender management. However, social justice activism and political pandering have cast a pall over the entire system regardless of the often impossible task at hand. Through the morass of the vitriolic rhetoric corrections personnel must maintain the highest levels of professionalism, ethics, sensitivity, and common sense to apply conceptual and evidence-based approaches and solutions to the problems faced. The cumulative effect requires corrections administrators and leaders to possess and practice contemporary and advanced practices to employ effective solutions to the problems plaguing the correctional system. 

Corrections and community corrections professionals are charged with a bifurcated responsibility of protecting the constitutional and human rights of convicted offenders in concert with protecting American society from additional harm which can potentially come from those who are incarcerated or under community supervision. This concentration provides the contemporary knowledge and advanced skill sets needed of correctional employees to effectively discharge their duties. Molded into the concentration structure are the necessary knowledge, skills, and abilities to understand corrections concepts from a systems approach rather than focused topical entities. The series includes the foundational underpinnings for conducting corrections operations through legal mandate and policy-based guidance. The next level in the hierarchy is correctional institution administration and leadership principles. As demonstrated across the federal justice system as well as each state’s and county’s corrections release programs, students learn the core concepts and practices of probation and parole systems. The series concludes with alternative methods of treatment and restorative justice concepts to build positive outcomes from the criminal justice system.  

Learning Objectives:

• Develop a broad understanding of theories, concepts, and practices used in the legal and policy based issues required in the corrections and community corrections field

• Develop a broad understanding of theories, concepts, and practices used in the supervision, management, and leadership of institutional corrections personnel

• Develop a broad understanding of theories, concepts, and practices used in the community-based corrections field

• Develop a broad understanding of theories, concepts, and practices used in the restorative, rehabilitative, and therapeutic jurisprudence methods used in the corrections and community-corrections based fields

• Develop a broad understanding of theories, concepts, and practices used in the integration of these various concepts through the corrections and community-corrections subsystems

Careers:

There is a vast array of careers in the corrections and community-corrections fields from direct line services through support and administrative roles. For example, uniformed corrections officers, investigators, supervisors, and managers who are responsible for providing correctional duties and services within institutions such as jails and prisons. Community-corrections encompasses probation and parole officers who are charged with field supervision, probationer and parolee management and oversight, in addition to rehabilitative program management.  Positions exist at the federal, state, and county levels in public institutions as well as privatization of jail services and staff in several jurisdictions across the country.