BS in Criminal Justice and Political Science

The School of Criminology and Criminal Justice was established in 1967 as one of the first schools of its kind devoted to matters of crime and justice. The school is a leading force in education, research, and policymaking in both the public and the private sectors of the criminal justice field. The School of Criminology and Criminal Justice seeks to prepare students for professional and research careers in criminology, criminal justice, and related fields by applying multidisciplinary and comparative social science to understand, predict, and explain crime as well as to contribute to the development of public policy on crime and justice issues. The school seeks to develop its students intellectually and ethically, while providing them with a keen appreciation of the complexities of crime and of the public and private efforts to make communities safer and to ensure justice. The world of criminal justice is much more than police officers, corrections officials, criminal defense lawyers, or security and loss prevention personnel. At the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, the boundaries of criminal justice have expanded beyond traditional views of the field to include emphases on law and justice, organizations and leadership, global criminology, and crime policy. Criminal justice education today is about more than the criminal; it involves understanding the victim and the community: repairing harm, reducing fear, rebuilding safe communities, and assuring justice in spirit and act. The School of Criminology and Criminal Justice has had a long-standing attachment and commitment to improving a wide range of justice system agencies. The school actively engages external partners in an ongoing conversation about research, community service, and salient policy questions. Part of this dialogue is supported by an ongoing program of applied and social science research. Much of this research focuses on evaluating existing government crime-control programs and policies to determine whether they work, as well as inquiries about the etiology and prevention of crime. In addition, much of our research examines the unintended consequences of policy: institutionalized racism, differential impact of justice policy on certain groups, and the like. Research conducted at Northeastern on these topics is approached with ethical sensitivity and scientific rigor. Criminology and criminal justice, as a social science, began in the early part of the twentieth century. Nearly one hundred years old, the field has blossomed in large part through the ingenuity of several notable scholars. The School of Criminology and Criminal Justice is pleased to be home to many of the country’s preeminent contemporary scholars. School of Criminology and Criminal Justice faculty members regularly present at scholarly conferences, national and international seminars, and to policymakers worldwide.