The need to integrate comparative and international criminal justice into a traditional curriculum

Abstract

Fifty years ago there were no college courses in criminal justice. No direct link existed between the educational process and the criminal justice system. This situation changed in the 1960s, however, with the passage of LEAA legislation that made postsecondary school training available for criminal justice personnel. For the past 30 years the number of universities offering criminal justice programs has increased, as has the number of students majoring in those programs. By 1990 there were 18 doctoral academic programs, 157 master's degree programs, and between 600 and 1,000 undergraduate-level program (Flanagan 1990; Southerland, 1991). Criminal justice and criminology have two principle loci: the study of offenders and the etiological correlates of offending, and the critical study of the relationship of social institutions as they react to the violations of law (Friday 1988). Early in the evolution of criminal justice education, the course of study still was somewhat separated from traditional sociological criminology; criminal justice was more practical and more oriented to training, while criminology retained a more theoretical and research orientation. Over the past 15 years, however, the distinctions have faded, and at most institutions the curricula are integrated into a common core. The process of integrating the two orientations sets a precedent for integrating international and comparative materials into an otherwise nationalistic course of study. Theoretically, criminology had an eclectic origin; the principal pioneers came from the diverse disciplines of philosophy, medicine, law, and sociology (Martin, Mutchnick, and Austin 1990). Its roots were principally European and were easily identified with the works of Beccaria and the classical school, Lombroso and the positivists, and Sigmund Freud. In the Mid-twentieth century the theoretical and empirical focus shifted to the United States, with the classic works of scholars such as Park and Burgess, Sutherland, and Reckless.