COLLEGE OF SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
Department of Sociology
Online Criminal Justice Studies Certificate
The demand for public safety and security professionals with superior education and training has never been greater. Our innovative online certificate lets you keep working while you build cutting-edge skills in domestic violence, cyber crime, criminal forensics, international organized crime and other specialties tailored to your career objectives. Gain a solid foundation in American criminal justice — and valuable credit toward your sociology or criminal justice degree — as you prepare for positions in the judiciary, corrections, policing, homeland security, victim services and social services fields through this flexible program that draws upon the resources of UMass Amherst’s nationally ranked Department of Sociology.
Program Details
Admission: The certificate program and courses offered in association with the program are open admission. The only restriction is that students are expected to have a high school degree or GED.
Application: Those who wish to enroll in the Criminal Justice certificate program should submit a completed application form and arrange to have their official high school transcript or GED sent to: Department of Sociology, University of Massachusetts, Thompson Hall, 200 Hicks Way, Amherst, MA 01003-9277. Applications are accepted on an ongoing basis and there is no fee to apply. Upon acceptance, notification will be sent to students. You may enroll in courses pending application approval.
Transfer credits: Many students use the courses in this program for transfer credit to other colleges and universities. The University of Massachusetts Amherst is accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges Institutional Accreditation (www.neasc.org). To find out if credits earned at the University of Massachusetts Amherst will be accepted by another college or university, contact the registrar's office at that university.
Curriculum: Students take a total of 5 courses (3 credits each), including:
- Criminology (Sociology 241)
- Sociology of Law (Sociology 323) or Deviance and Social Order (Sociology 342)
- Three additional criminal justice electives
Certificate requirements: The certificate is awarded to students completing the required courses with passing grades in each course (a combined minimum grade point average of 2.0 on a scale of 4.0). All courses must be taken through UMass Amherst.
Certification process: Upon meeting the requirements, students must submit a certificate application form and formal request to have their transcript sent to the program director for auditing.
Fees: This certificate requires students to take five 3-credit courses. The fee for each 3-credit course is $1,113, and for each 4-credit course is $1,484. There is an additional non-refundable registration fee of $45 each term. The registration fee is paid only once each term, regardless of how many courses a student enrolls in.
Summer 2013 Classes By Program
Fall 2013 Classes By Program
For more information:
Criminal Justice Certificate Program
Sociology Department
University of Massachusetts Amherst, MA 01003
413-545-4059
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Faculty
Tom Bazley (SOCIOL 391M: Serial and Mass Murder, SOCIOL 394S: White-Collar Crime/Summer 09) received his Ph.D. in Criminology from the University of South Florida, Tampa. He retired from the U.S. Postal Inspection Service after having served more than twenty-six years, with duty stations in Newark, NJ, Washington, DC, Philadelphia, PA, and Tampa, FL. He held a variety of field investigative and management positions, including the head of basic training for newly hired Postal Inspectors. Additionally, he was a visiting instructor at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, Glynco, GA. Dr. Bazley continues to be headquartered in Tampa where he writes, and teaches undergraduate and graduate level Criminology/Criminal Justice courses. His research interests included white collar/corporate crime, policing and law enforcement, and violence issues. He has authored and co-authored publications on these topics.
Sara Becker (SOCIOL 241: Criminology/Summer 09, Fall 09) is the Assistant Director of the residential Criminal Justice Program in the Department of Sociology at UMass-Amherst, where she is also a doctoral candidate. Her current project is ethnography of an east coast vacation village and its anti-crime efforts. She also does research and publishes in the area of inter/intraracial violence using data from the National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS). She has taught at Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts and at UMass-Amherst in the areas of criminology, gender and crime, and sociological research methods. Beginning in September 2008, she will be an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and the Department of Women's and Gender Studies at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, LA.
Lee Blackstone (SOCIOL 242: Drugs and Society/Summer 09, Fall 09) holds a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. An assistant professor of sociology and criminology at the State University of New York at Old Westbury, he has taught at Wesleyan University and the University of Massachusetts Amherst in areas of crime and deviance including juvenile delinquency, drugs and society, and criminal violence. He has conducted extensive fieldwork in England, and is currently writing and publishing on the relationship between citizenship and the law.
Joshua Carreiro (SOCIOL 392A: Race, Class, and Crime/Fall 09) is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts studying social class inequality, the labor movement and union organizing, and consumption. In recent years he has taught Social Class Inequality, Race, Gender, Class and Ethnicity, and The Family at UMass. Joshua is also a lecturer at Smith College where he teaches Class and Society, Work and Social Change, and Introduction to Sociology. Joshua received his B.A. in Sociology and Philosophy at the University of Connecticut and completed an M.A. in Sociology at the University of Massachusetts in 2006. He has published articles on media coverage of the United States labor movement and union organizing efforts in the low-wage service sector of the economy.
Patrick Grove (SOCIOL 394F: Crime and Forensics/Fall 09) is a 30-year veteran of law enforcement and currently commander of the Tactical Response Team for the Kansas City, Missouri Police Department. With a background in the street crimes unit and tactical supervision and narcotics enforcement, Patrick Grove has spent the last couple of years working in the area of incident command management. He holds a master's degree in public administration from the University of Missouri and instructs at the Regional Police Academy. He teaches SOCIOL 394F, Crime and Forensics.
Laura Hickman (SOCIOL 395K: Domestic Violence/Summer 09, Fall 09) holds the joint titles of Social Scientist at the RAND Corporation and Associate Professor of Criminal Justic at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. She has worked primarily in the area of domestic violence, including research on the impact of police behavior on the future reporting of female domestic violence victims, barriers to addressing domestic violence in military families, estimating the economic costs of domestic violence, and the correctional supervision of domestic violence offenders. Among other studies, Dr. Hickman is currently leading research projects on prosecutorial decision-making in federal death penalty cases and the status of women in policing.She received her Ph.D. in Criminology and Criminal Justice from the University of Maryland.
James Kirk Miller (SOCIOL 392J: Race and Policing/Summer 09) is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Northern Illinois University. He received his Ph.D. in Sociology from North Carolina State University. His interests are focused on aspects of social control as a process and outcome, with special attention to the criminal justice system as a locus for race, class, and gender inequalities. His research interests are in the areas of racial profiling, controlling discretion and accountability, police legitimacy, and the diffusion of policy and law within and across nations. He also has extensive experience in survey design and analysis.
Gary Minor (SOCIOL 397D: Delinquency and Juvenile Justice and SOCIOL 397E: Ethics and Criminology/Summer 09 and SOCIOL 323: Sociology of Law/Fall 09) recently retired from his position as chief of police in a suburb of Seattle, Washington. With over 25 years of police experience, as officer, sergeant, detective, and narcotics investigator, Chief Minor holds a master's degree in information systems and a JD in law from Seattle University School of Law. He practiced criminal law for 6 years, and has extensive experience teaching a variety of traditional and online college courses on criminal justice, criminal law, and juvenile justice.
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