Criminal Justice Majors Research Articles

Improvements in Literacy, Stigmatic Views, and Microaggressions Towards Mental Illness for Undergraduate Criminal Justice Majors

Mental illness impacts billions, globally. While mental illness does not predict criminality, many individuals with mental health needs find themselves within the various decision points of the criminal legal system. Research shows that individuals experiencing a mental health challenge and/or crisis are at greater risk for a law enforcement encounter, police use-of-forth, detainment in jail, and court and correctional system involvement. Yet, research has found that increased knowledge surrounding mental illness can reduce negative criminal legal system involvement. As such, the current sample included undergraduate criminal justice students enrolled in an elective course that included Mental Health First Aid (MHFA)—an evidence-based intervention training. In the current study, MHFA was part of the course curriculum. Enrolled students completed both a pre- and post-test questionnaire (at the beginning and end of the course) to measure changes in their mental illness literacy for depression, mental illness stigma, and mental illness microaggressions. Results support the implementation of MHFA to undergraduate criminal justice students, as students had an increase in mental illness literacy, and decreases in mental illness stigma and microaggressions. These findings encourage more colleges and universities to offer MHFA to promote peer support as well as professional knowledge for those who will work within the criminal legal system.

Service-Learning with Undergraduate Criminal Justice Majors: A Comparison of Campus and Online Students on Reflective Learning

Service-learning is an academic tool used to engage students in a hands-on approach to targeting a community need with an emphasis on reflection. While studies utilizing criminal justice students have shown that on-campus students see value in such experience, little is known about those enrolled in online criminal justice courses. The current study compared a final reflection assignment grade for on-campus and online students in a Victim Advocacy and Victimology course (within a criminal justice department) following their service-learning project on creating training on gender-based violence. No differences were found when assessing critical thinking, personal impact, or awareness of the significance of the project for on-campus and online students. The findings suggest criminal justice professors should invest more time in the creation of service-learning opportunities for online students as they can gain the same valuable experiences as their equivalent on-campus students.

Enhancing Criminology Education with Crime News Analysis

Crime news analysis is an effective teaching tool in teaching Criminology. This study illustrates the use of crime news analysis in Criminology, and examines its effectiveness using a quasi-experimental survey. The results show that crime news analysis significantly enhances students’ interest in the subject matter, improves their learning experiences, and fosters stronger attachment to the Criminal Justice program. Incorporating crime news analysis into the curriculum facilitates understanding the causes of crime, connecting theory to practice, improving analytical and critical thinking skills, and promoting active engagement with real-world issues. The study also reveals that crime news analysis’s impact is more pronounced among criminal justice majors, freshmen, sophomores, and female students. Additionally, its effectiveness is slightly higher in face-to-face classes compared to online ones. These findings provide valuable insights into optimizing the educational merits of crime news analysis in various contexts and demographics.

Aspirations of Hispanic criminal justice students to join law enforcement: an empirical investigation

This study investigates the job preferences of criminal justice (CJ) students and potential factors that may impact their application for law enforcement positions. Existing research has shown that factors like gender, race, and class standing influence career choices among CJ majors. To contribute to this body of knowledge, this study focuses on CJ students’ attitudes toward the police and willingness to engage in community policing programs. The research examined 231 CJ students in a Hispanic serving university situated along the US-Mexican border. Research findings indicate that CJ students are less likely to pursue law enforcement careers if they hold less favorable attitudes toward the police or are unwilling to participate in ride-along programs. The study concludes with policy implications.

Supplemental Instruction at a Hispanic-Serving Institution: Moving Towards a Model to Improve Equity in Student Outcomes

ABSTRACT This research examines the role of Supplemental Instruction in assisting students at a small Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) in the Southwest United States to improve their final grades in a required statistics course for criminal justice majors. Data collected over three semesters were analyzed using multivariate regression to test if participation in Supplemental Instruction moderates the relationship between race, ethnicity, and final grades earned, with Latinx students and students from other historically underrepresented racial and ethnic groups especially benefitting from SI participation. We find positive interactions for race, ethnicity, and final grades; however, the interaction term is only statistically significant for students from other, non-Latinx underrepresented racial and ethnic groups. These students attended SI most frequently, derived the most benefits from their participation, and were also notably the most underrepresented in the institution and the course. We go on to discuss evidence-based recommendations that SI and other collaborative learning programs may consider if their goal is to move toward servingness by improving equity in performance and academic success outcomes across students from diverse backgrounds.

Cognitive and Affective Precursors to Decisions to use Lethal Force Against Black Suspects: A Virtual Reality Application

Here we investigated the role of physiological stress on participants' lethal force decisions with Black suspects using a novel virtual reality (VR) paradigm. We examined the conditional and mediational roles of implicit racism and visual attention to Black suspects. For this study, we filmed a series of high-risk suspect-police interactions with a 360° video camera which, when viewed through the VR headset, embeds the participants in these scenarios from the perspective of a police officer. Embedded eye tracking in the VR enabled assessment of both physiological stress (through pupil dilation) and attention (through gaze location). Analysis of these behavioral data with criminal justice majors ( N = 39) revealed a facilitative function of physiological stress for improving accuracy in lethal force decisions, specifically among those with low levels of implicit racism. Findings also indicated that dysregulated attention—characterized by either disorganized or fixated attentional patterns—compromised lethal force decision making. Results are discussed in relation to future applications of VR to inform our understanding of cognitive and affective precursors of poor decision making. Implications include the promise of cognitive-behavioral interventions for mitigating dysregulated attention patterns, ultimately towards the end of reducing unwarranted uses of lethal force against Black men and women.

Criminal Justice Students’ Perceptions of Their Future Careers

This study examines how criminal justice majors taking courses during the COVID-19 pandemic perceive their future careers. These expectations are compared to those of students majoring in lab sciences and non-lab fields. Variation by race and ethnicity are also assessed. Data were obtained from 188 undergraduate students at a single institution in Spring 2021 and Fall 2021 using an online survey. Results indicated that students’ estimates of their future salaries and job availability were accurate to current labor market conditions. Hispanics anticipated higher salaries and more salary growth than non-Hispanics. Criminal justice majors were attracted to jobs based on potential to help others, challenge, job tasks, salary, and the fun, thrill, or excitement of the job. Health majors were more drawn to features like salary and job availability. Criminal justice students were more likely than others to note power as well as prestige, recognition, or status as appealing job features.

Policing is not for me: repelling factors implicated in vocational choice elimination

ABSTRACT Occupational choice involves both attracting and repelling forces. The changing nature of police work and public scrutiny surrounding officers’ participation in incidents involving racial bias and excessive force have resulted in shifting perceptions of the profession among the general public, serving as forces that move people away from the occupation. While much recent research focuses on motivating and attracting forces, it is equally important to address attributes that are implicated in keeping potential candidates from considering policing as a viable career choice, given rising rates of attrition and lack of new recruits. Utilising a sample of undergraduate criminal justice majors (N = 152), a logistic regression indicated gender, race/ethnicity, need for power, and meaningful work act as significant predictors for eliminating policing as a career choice. Analysis of qualitative responses further supports our results, as well as provides additional insight into participants’ decision to exclude policing as a career choice. Job attributes (e.g. dangerous conditions, bad hours), lack of fit, and poor occupational image were identified as key themes for vocational choice elimination. Findings have implications for the recruitment and retention of law enforcement personnel, as well as efforts to increase diversity within policing agencies.

Racial Essentialism and Stress: A Deadly Combination for Prospective Police Officers’ Encounters with Black Suspects

Previous research based on documented incidents of police uses of lethal force and experimental studies using computer sorting programs have demonstrated that incorrect lethal force decisions tend to occur more frequently with Black relative to White suspects. Using virtual reality, the current study examined the psychophysiology underlying incorrect lethal force decision with Black suspects, and the interactive impact of racial essentialism. Forty-nine White criminal justice majors viewed 360 degree videos of high-pressure suspect interactions in VR, from the perspective of the police officer. A virtual police-issued handgun was used to make and record decisions to shoot; incorrect uses of lethal force were operationalized using signal detection theory. Physiological stress (i.e., variance in pupil dilation) and visual attention were measured with embedded eye tracking in the VR. As predicted, physiological stress led to more incorrect uses of lethal force with Black suspects through fixated visual attention, but only among those who scored high on a racial essentialism survey measure. Findings converge with more recent studies supporting the potent interactive role between cognition (e.g., racial essentialism) and affect (i.e., stress) on lethal force decisions with Black suspects. These studies point to the continued role of psychoeducation and cognitive–behavioral interventions in informing police training interventions aimed at mitigating incorrect uses of lethal force with Black men and women.

Career Aspirations, Influences, and Motives in Undergraduate Criminal Justice Majors: A Comparison of Two Student Cohorts Assessed Seven Years apart

Career aspirations, influences, and motives were compared for cohorts of criminal justice majors surveyed in 2014 (N = 204) and 2021 (N = 218). The first hypotheses held that there would be significantly fewer students interested in a career in law enforcement in 2021 than in 2014 because of recent events involving police use of excessive force against people of color. Contrary to this hypothesis, interest in a law enforcement career, particularly federal law enforcement, grew rather than shrank between 2014 and 2021. A second hypothesis predicted an increase in altruistic motives and a decrease in egotistic motives for a criminal justice career between 2014 and 2021. This hypothesis received partial support. A third hypothesis, this one testing whether law enforcement career aspirations and media influences on career choice in criminal justice majors decreased and teacher/professor influences increased as class standing (freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior) increased, also received support.

Criminal Justice Students’ Perceptions amid George Floyd’s Death and COVID-19

This work explores the extent to which the death of George Floyd in May of 2020 and the COVID-19 crisis affected criminal justice students’ perceptions of career commitment and motivations toward public service. A survey was administered to a cohort of criminal justice majors at one Michigan university who were between their junior and senior years, once in the spring semester of 2020, before Floyd’s death and the civil unrest that followed, and again at the end of the 2020 summer semester. The results suggest that career commitment remained unchanged between the two time points, as did the students’ COVID-related attitudes. Contrary to expectations, public service motivation increased (rather than decreased), and this change was significant. The results are more encouraging than might be expected in such a tumultuous time of history, and they may help inform educators about how students view such turmoil relative to their career choice.

To eP or Not to eP: Electronic Portfolio Usage and Their Role in Framing Digital Identities Among Criminal Justice, Cybersecurity, and Leadership Majors.

Electronic portfolios have been hailed as a useful pedological tool on numerous grounds. One commonly cited justification is that portfolios deepen student learning and help students develop a professional identity. Whether electronic portfolios are used equally across programs and the degree to which they promote digital identities across student groups remains open to question. To fill this void in the research, in this study we explore the degree to which students from three majors (cybersecurity, leadership, and criminal justice) report using electronic portfolios, with a specific focus given to the reported strengths of electronic portfolios and the way the tool shaped digital identity development.

The Desirability of Law Enforcement Careers among College Students in a Hispanic Community

This study examines the effects of attitudes toward the police and punitive ideology on Hispanic criminal justice majors’ interest in law enforcement careers. To date, relatively few studies of the occupational interests of students majoring in criminal justice have been conducted and most have focused on the impact of demographic characteristics on career goals among predominantly White samples of criminal justice majors. Few scholars have questioned whether the attitudes and beliefs of criminal justice majors influence their occupational aspirations or investigated the career objectives of racial/ethnic minority criminal justice majors. This study addresses these gaps in the extant literature via an analysis of survey data collected from students attending a Hispanic-Serving Institution. A structural equation model of the data indicates the students’ age, gender, attitudes toward the police, contact with the police, and punitiveness are significantly correlated with interest in a career in law enforcement. The policy implications are discussed.

Major Blame: Examining Male Rape Myth Acceptance across College Majors

Literature and attention to rape myth acceptance (RMA) often focuses on female victims, however, studies have found evidence of male rape myth acceptance (MRMA) and linked negative perceptions of male victims to victim blaming attitudes, as well as victim disclosure. Thus, examining a population that is at high risk for sexual victimization and underreporting, such as college students, is pertinent. There are many factors related to RMA, but few have examined college major as a factor associated with RMA. Moreover, none have specifically examined MRMA and college major. However, studies have indicated that Criminal Justice majors may have more punitive attitudes towards crime, and may be less empathetic than other majors, which may influence their future work-related actions in their prospective fields. Findings reveal that Criminal Justice majors scored significantly lower on the MRMA scale compared to all other majors included in the study. Limitations and implications are also discussed.

“Easier, Less Stressful, and Better Results”: Sociology and Criminal Justice Majors’ Experience of Library Research before and after Library Instruction

This article argues for the incorporation of library instruction into research methods courses to foster information literacy skills important to disciplinary specialization. The evidence in support emerges from a collaborative teaching and assessment project conducted by a research methods instructor and a faculty instructional librarian. The project evaluated the effectiveness of library instruction in two ways: One, essays in which students described their research process before and after library instruction were evaluated qualitatively for dominant themes. Two, students’ postinstruction literature review projects were assessed using a rubric to determine the degree to which students met learning outcomes. These assessments indicate that library instruction led to several positive outcomes. In the essays, many students described increases in skills and confidence as well as appreciation for the new research tools introduced. In sampled literature review assignments, students demonstrated skills that met or exceeded expectations.

Revisiting Eigenberg's prison rape model with criminal justice majors

ABSTRACT Prison rape can result in profound physical and psychological damage to inmates. Despite the 2003 Prison Rape Elimination Act, prison rape incidents in the US have increased over 15 years. Previous research results have demonstrated that correctional officers who endorsed rape myths failed to enforce regulations, and they were apt to engage in sexual misconduct or sexual harassment directed toward inmates. It has been almost two decades since Eigenberg ([2000a]. Correctional officers’ definitions of rape in male prisons. Journal of Criminal Justice, 28, 435–449) presented the mechanism explaining prison rape myths (PRM) among correctional officers. The present study revisits Eigenberg's (2000a) prison rape model using the survey data from 446 criminal justice (CJ) majors, 119 of whom expressed their interest in corrections as a desired career. For the most part, the findings in this study confirm that Eigenberg's (2000a) model is applicable to the PRM of CJ majors. However, no education effect in relation to PRM was found. Implications for recruitment, training, and education, as well as avenues for future research, are then discussed.

Development and Implementation of a Capstone Experience in Criminal Justice

During the academic year 2015–2016, our department implemented a capstone experience for all criminal justice majors. The contemporary scholarly literature on developing a capstone in a criminology/criminal justice program is limited. Therefore, we focused on developing a capstone experience that would be a high impact practice opportunity, take advantage of the existing Internship option, and be consistent with our program-level learning outcomes. A Senior Seminar course was also developed as an alternative to the Internship and students were provided the option of either. A common assignment was also developed with the goal of assessing program-level outcomes in communication. Preliminary assessment results are discussed along with the challenges and lessons learned in this process.

The Specter of Authoritarianism among Criminal Justice Majors at Outreach Centers: Do University Outreach Efforts Breed Right-Wing Authoritarianism?

While research has examined criminal justice students in traditional university settings, a predominately Black college, and a military college, no one has looked at CJ students in outreach centers. These centers allow students to pursue a four-year degree without leaving their community. Students are exposed to limited diversity because of this setting. Previous studies found that lower division male freshman CJ students were of a higher Right-Wing Authoritarian (RWA) mindset. Based on our study, we conclude that having a CJ program at an outreach center produces a broader finding. A young male CJ student at an outreach center is more prone to RWA attitudes – similar to the mindset of a military college CJ major. However, a young male CJ major does not necessarily mean lower division. We found older students tend to have lower RWA attitudes and in this setting, it is common to have older lower division students.

Sensitivity to Status-Based Rejection: Implications for Female and Minority Criminal Justice Majors

Now more than ever, criminal justice agencies are looking to fill their ranks with a diverse workforce that reflects the populations they serve. Criminal justice is a field where diversity matters, is encouraged, and is sought after in recruitment efforts. Also, research shows that females are highly effective in this discipline due to their unique communication skills. Therefore, it is important for females and minorities to feel they are welcomed and belong in those agencies. This article explores how perceptions affect the employability of women and people of color. Exploring their level of confidence or anxiety about their future ability to adapt to their work environment could offer insights on how to better support criminal justice students and on how to help agencies to better integrate and maintain diversity in their organizations. This study examines criminal justice students’ sensitivity to status-based rejection. Specifically, college students in the field of criminal justice were surveyed regarding their anxieties and beliefs about how others’ perceptions of their status (gender, race, and/or ethnicity) might affect their professional careers. Results suggest that while females of all races and African American students of any gender are significantly more likely to be concerned about the potential for status-based rejection when employed, or trying to become employed, in the field of criminal justice, female Hispanic students are concerned about the combined effects of their race and gender on their future careers. Policy implications are discussed.

Student Perceptions of Employer Use of Social Media in Selection Decisions: Comparing Criminal Justice Majors to Non-Majors

An increasing concern among university professors and students alike is the image that students project through their social media accounts, particularly when future graduates seek employment in fields such as policing and other criminal justice careers. Despite this common concern, little research has examined the degree to which criminal justice (CJ) students accept employer use of social media searches as a screening tool, or whether there is variation among students based upon characteristics commonly associated with employment discrimination. Drawing upon a survey of over 630 students in criminal justice courses at five public universities, the current inquiry finds that criminal justice majors’ opinions of social media searches do not differ from non-majors taking criminal justice courses. However, African-American, Latino, and students of other races all have less acceptance of the use of employer searches of social media than do white students. Implications for policy and future research are also discussed.