Criminal Justice

The Bachelor of Arts degree in criminal justice from the University of Mount Union can provide students with the skills to obtain a career in any number of fields. Whether seeking to pursue a career in law enforcement or private security, a degree in criminal justice can help students reach their full potential.

The criminal justice degree offers four tracks to choose from – law enforcement, community corrections, forensic studies, or criminology. The courses allow students to study a wide variety of topics from dedicated faculty.

Criminal Justice Major Quick Facts

The criminal justice degree requires a total of 120 credits, with a total of 50 credits being specific to the major. Students will also need to complete the Integrative Core, a total of 32 credits. Students interested in a career in criminal justice will get hands-on experience by participating in numerous opportunities including:

The opportunity to use an empty campus house as a mock crime scene for a burglary alongside members of Alliance Police Department (APD)
The opportunity to gather evidence from a mock road traffic scene set up on Mount Union’s campus as well as the opportunity to learn from Ohio State Highway Patrol Investigation Officers
Opportunities for internships in the field
Access to a fully equipped investigative crime office on campus
Opportunities to practice with fingerprinting kits, fingerprint identification keys, and ballistics data, and reports

The University of Mount Union’s criminal justice program has received multiple rankings including:

#1 in Ohio, #4 in the Great Lakes region, and #8 in the nation as a best value in College Factual’s 2018 rankings
#6 and #16 in the Great Lakes region for quality
#6 and #18 in the Great Lakes region for the highest paid graduates

Curriculum

As an interdisciplinary study, criminal justice combines sociology, psychology, forensic science, legal studies, philosophy, political science and urban studies, and tries to identify and explain patterns of criminal behavior. As a criminal justice major, you have the opportunity to pick between one of four tracks:

Law Enforcement
Community Corrections
Forensic Studies
Criminology

The law enforcement concentration is for students who wish to pursue a career in a variety of state and local law enforcement agencies. You will study topics ranging from juvenile delinquency to criminology to family violence. The applied criminal justice concentration is designed for those interested in pursuing a career in corrections, probation, or parole. Those who choose this track will take courses involving drugs and crime, behavior and society, among a variety of others.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE PROGRAM LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Students will demonstrate effective. . .

Oral communication through the presentation of an academic research project in the major;
Research design based on acceptable standards of the discipline;
Analysis which takes into account the interdisciplinary nature of the work in criminal justice;
Written communication as demonstrated in the senior culminating project paper;
Synthesis of disciplinary theory and perspectives into the research project.

Careers

What can you do with a criminal justice major? As the criminal justice system continues to grow and become more sophisticated, opportunities for meaningful work, including graduate study, are projected to be abundant in the years to come. Mount Union’s criminal justice program can prepare you to join any number of branches that exist within this interesting and growing field.

RECENT EMPLOYERS

Stark County Sheriff's Office
U.S. Military
International Association of Chiefs
of Police

RECENT GRAD SCHOOLS

University of Maryland
Elon University
University of Akron
Cleveland State University

COMMON CAREERS

Government and public safety
Law enforcement and corrections
Private security
Criminology
Social service administration

Experiential Learning

Being a criminal justice major at the University of Mount Union, students have an opportunity to study Crime Investigation. This is a course specifically designed to enable students to experience the role they may have as first responders when they enter the professional world.

The course makes use of a number of practical assessments to examine the student’s knowledge and understanding. These experiences have included:

Mock Road Traffic Crash
Mock Burglary Scene
Crime Office

Criminal justice majors also have the chance to participate in internships to gain “real world” experience and allow them to apply their learning beyond the classroom.

Featured Spotlights

Shawn O'Neill '12 Corrections Officer

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I really enjoyed the classwork at Mount Union and I feel like that helped prepare me for my job. Also, the professionalism and the way faculty and staff handled themselves prepared me on how to present myself for future opportunities.

Dr. Andy Bain Associate Professor of Criminal Justice

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UMU is different, in the very fact that it not only offers, but expects that students will engage with a diverse program, which in turn provides for an experience in education unlike anything else.

Gretchen Koken ‘23 Psychology and criminal justice major

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Get comfortable being uncomfortable. There’s a lot of different things to do on campus and if you get over the mental aspect of being uncomfortable, you’ll have so much more fun!

Avery Wengerter '24 Criminal justice and psychology double major

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It is hard to achieve that sense of family on campus; Mount Union does just that.