MSCJ 701 Crime and Organizational Theory into Practice
This course introduces student to the critical theories that help explain or give context to both criminal behavior and how organizations function. Particular emphasis is placed on applying the theoretical frameworks to policy formation and analysis.
MSCJ 702 Crisis Management and Media Relations
This course begins with the conceptual frameworks that explain how the modern 24/7 ‘mediated’ world impacts the way organizations, agencies, and firms function or relate to citizens and customers. Importantly, the class will show how agency leaders can avoid making problems or the perceptions of problems worse by mishandling or communicating. Case studies will be utilized to show students how to handle specific types of crisis management situations.
MSCJ 703 Budget Analysis
This class will teach students the core skills associated with the development and management of budgets for agencies or functional departments. Students will synthesize and apply budgeting concepts using Microsoft Excel through real-world examples and case studies
MSCJ 704 Assessing Organizational Performance
This course will build-off of previous coursework and learn more refined approaches to assessing the outcomes and methods organizations employ to meet their goals. This course will look at a broad range of topics and case studies from critical incidents to human resource issues.
MSCJ 705 Applied Data Analysis and Decision-Making
This class will teach students how to empirically analyze and present data for informed decision-making. Students will use Excel analyze macro level trend issues such as crime rates as well as micro level inter-departmental problems. This course is designed to ensure that students are informed consumers of administration statistics and prepare them for the advanced quantitative electives offered later in the curriculum.
MSCJ 706 Ethics and the Administration of Justice
The course will provide students with an overview of ethics and ethical dilemmas which practitioners will face in the course of their profession. Using both classical and modern models students will develop skills necessary to identify and evaluate ethical and moral challenges in policing, bioethics, and corporate practices.
MSCJ 811 Survey of Justice Administration
This course comprises a synthesis and application of organizational and administrative theories and concepts to the administration of the criminal justice system. The course uses a ‘systems’ or ‘interactionist’ approach in order to facilitate the students sensitivities and insights into their understanding of the principles by which all organizations, Criminal Justice or otherwise, operate. Thus, this course considers the critical orientations in which the CJ administration operates: Historical, psychological, managerial, sociological, and political economy.
MSCJ 812 Bureau Pathology in Justice Administration
The purpose of this course is to show relationships between the structures/processes of organizations and the "pathologies" to which organizations are prone, with particular emphasis on public sector and non-profit organizations. Students will learn to apply and sharpen their understanding of the nature and causes of organizational pathology by closely examining specific instances of organizational failure to apply those lessons. Students will also gain a deeper understanding of how management policy and employee behavior can undermine the efficient, effective and lawful delivery of goods and services by public, non-profit and private organizations.
MSCJ 813 Critical Problems in Forensic Administration
This course is intended to give law enforcement managers a broad overview in how to evaluate the value of forensic psychology and forensic science assets in criminal investigations. The primary goal of the course is to instruct managers in law enforcement agencies how to understand, choose and become knowledgeable consumers of forensic psychology topics such as eyewitness evidence, psychological profiling, risk analysis and use of force decision-making. In addition, forensic science management issues such as the evaluation of criminalistics evidence, managing single and multiple forensic cases, evidence organization and categorization and lab back-logs will be discussed.
MSCJ 814 Policy Analysis and Program Evaluation
This course will provide the graduate student insight into the realm of program and policy evaluation. While the course will be aimed primarily at police program and policy evaluation, there will be many instances where general, broad sweeping concepts will be placed into a broader framework so as to accompany many aspects of the discipline in both the public as well as private sectors. Students will be exposed to fundamental models, theoretical constructs, and methodological approaches utilized within program and policy evaluation.
MSCJ 815 Special Topics in Justice Administration
This course provides an overview of policy debates in criminal justice organizations, methods of resolving these debates and implementation of policy decisions. Students will work together in considering the background of policy debates, including the effect of their political contexts and, importantly, relevant empirical research and theories of criminal justice. For instance, separation of powers issues, federalism, and the impact of how society thinks about crime and punishment will be discussed in the first weeks of class. Next, the class will cover a range of prescient and cutting edge issues pertaining to punitiveness, sex offender registries, technology, surveillance, law enforcement and the governance thereof. At that point, the class will analyze critical policy dilemmas faced by justice administrators that directly relate to the current research in forensic psychology.
MSCJ 815 Applied Situational Crime Prevention
The Situational Crime Prevention (SCP) theoretical paradigm is the dominant construct under which modern crime control and prevention works. For nearly thirty years agencies around the world, tasked with either preventing or controlling unwanted behaviors and events, have successfully applied SCP principles to a broad range of circumstances. However, many practitioners don’t fully implement or understand how to evaluate the results of their efforts. This, in part, has to do with a lack of understanding on how to maximize the value of applying the theory and how to design interventions to mitigate the weaknesses of the theory. This course is designed to advance the practitioners theoretical insights and extend those, through class projects, to immediately applying and evaluating the results.
MSCJ 817 Responses to Crime Victimization
In the process of responding to a crime, collecting evidence, providing a sound case for prosecution, and trying the case in court, crime victims are often marginalized and become peripheral to the entire criminal justice process in their own case. The purpose of this course is to provide criminal justice professionals with the knowledge and skills necessary to provide victim services in an effective and statutorily compliant manner. In addition, professionals are challenged to appreciate and promote the value of victim rights and services to the well-being of those who are victims of crimes and to the impact these services have on the criminal justice system as a whole.
MSCJ 821 Corporate Risk Administration and Management
This course examines the basic principles of administration and management of loss prevention, protection and security found in a wide range of private sector businesses and industries. Managers in all organizations, including those focusing on security, must perform certain essential functions including organizing, leading, planning and controlling. The ultimate mission of the security/loss prevention component of a security organization, is to protect people, property, proprietary information and other assets of the respective business. As we will explore in this course, the consequences of occurrences from outside the business including criminal threats and events as well as internal threats such as employee theft and fraud, workplace violence and espionage are the responsibility of the security organization.
MSCJ 822 Premises Liability and Crime Foreseeability
The course will integrate material from the fields of security, law, crime prevention and premises liability. Through the vehicle of civil law, premises security liability is the civil liability of property owners to provide reasonable and adequate security to patrons and other invitees onto their premises. When a property owner fails to provide a reasonably safe environment to invitees, and, as a result, a criminal victimization occurs, the property owner may be liable for losses incurred. The standards necessary to trigger the charge of negligent or inadequate security on the part of a private or public establishment are reviewed including the use of risk assessment and security assessment techniques for examining the determination of proximate cause, legal duty, reasonable standard of care and crime foreseeability. Security standards, recommendations and best practices for a variety of businesses and industries are examined in the course utilizing a series of case studies.
MSCJ 823 Law for Private Sector Security Professionals
This course focuses on the expanding body of law that guides the actions of private security professionals as they protect life and property in a post 9/11 America. Unlike criminal law, which is based on numerous U.S. Supreme Court decisions, subject areas within security law are based largely on state court decisions which present challenges to corporations operating in different states. Differing from public law enforcement officers, private sector professionals must be prepared to prevent incidents from occurring in a variety of businesses and industries as well as deal with the consequences of occurrences such as workplace violence, sexual harassment, internal theft and fraud, threats from criminal offenders and more recently, terrorists. In carrying out their safety and security responsibilities, they must deal with a broad array of issues concerning relationships among individuals, conduct internal investigations, and address legal liability issues dealing with a large category of civil offenses including negligent liability, invasion of privacy, defamation, malicious prosecution, the use of force, civil rights violations, etc. Key elements of security law are presented in the course including a discussion of trends in security liability lawsuits and possible ways to reduce liability.
MSCJ 824 Security and Loss Prevention
The terms security and loss prevention are often used synonymously with the former generally referring to traditional methods of protection for a business through the use of security officers and other physical countermeasures. Loss prevention, on the other hand, is more broadly defined encompassing any methods employed by a business or organization to increase the likelihood of preventing and controlling loss (e.g., people, money, property, materials, productivity) resulting from a host of adverse occurrences (e.g., crime, fire, accidents, disasters). This course provides an overview of the foremost security and loss prevention issues facing businesses and other organizations in 21st Century America and reviews current management, fiscal, and physical countermeasures from internal and external threats employed by security professionals (e.g., chief executive officers, security managers and loss prevention specialists)
MSCJ 825 Emerging Trends in Security Technology
The course focuses on emerging trends, operating procedures, and the application of technology to meet the increased level of security in commercial, industrial and government organizations. Topics explored include the latest developments in access control systems, biometrics and identity management, smart card technology, digital and IP video surveillance/management systems, and integrated systems operations and processes. Also covered are an overview of information technology (IT) and a discussion of the convergence and integration of IT security with physical security. Another section of the course examines legacy systems and new technologies, i.e., how do organizations effectively deploy changing security technological enhancements and upgrades to an existing security system? Finally, new technological advances in industry-specific environments are assessed using case studies.
MSCJ 826 International Risk Analysis
Social, political, and economic globalization sets the stage for this course. Increasingly, a firm’s success or failure is integrally related to factors in different countries, states, and jurisdiction. “Just in Time” logistics and the variances associated with political, economic, and social risks have a direct impact on both domestic and international firms. The purpose of this course is to provide students with a hands-on experience in conducting the kind of international risk analysis that is increasingly demanded.
MSCJ 831 Inspector General Administration
Persons employed in the capacity of inspector general investigators, internal auditors, and corporate management investigators will often be called upon to handle delicate and specialized investigations. These investigations, while generally under the umbrella of “theft by misappropriation of fraud” will often involve specialized subsets of general theft ordinances and operationalizations of the theft itself. Examples of these theft types include: contract fraud, procurement fraud, vendor fraud, and “services rendered” fraud. Additionally, investigators and auditors may also be tasked with involvement in ethical and sexual harassment investigations, as well as compliance issues. This course will provide participants with an understanding of the both government and private sector procurement and contract standards, including the common weaknesses often utilized by internal and external fraudsters. Pertinent accounting and legislative standards will be reviewed as well as some of the forensic tools available to investigators. The specific challenges of ethic and sexual harassment investigations and compliance audits will be reviewed as well.
MSCJ 832 Forensic Interviewing and Interrogation
This course will provide the participant with the theory, knowledge, methodology, and practical application required for conducting a proper cognitive interview, obtaining a "pure version statement," analyzing statements, and understanding the basics of nationally accepted interviews structures such as Reid's Nine Steps to Interrogation. While tactical interview/interrogation methodology will be reviewed this course will also provide the participant with an understanding of the scientific and technical underpinnings of the forensic interview process. Participants will conduct a review of academically peer-reviewed articles concerning this field of study as well as reviewing proprietary private section non-published research.
MSCJ 833 Financial Fraud Investigations
The objective of the course is to introduce the concept of financial fraud investigations, often referred to forensic accounting to the participant. While all financial fraud crimes come under the umbrella of “theft’, there are specific challenges in the detection, investigation, and prosecution of this specific crime type. While general criminal investigative techniques are utilized in these cases, specific and specialized training in this field will offer the course participant another tool in their investigative arsenal. The course will provide students with a general/introductory understanding of forensic accounting and the basic skills needed to perform forensic accounting/ financial fraud investigations. Additionally, participants will receive instruction in: identifying fraud schemes, an explanation of the legal elements of fraud (for state and federal jurisdictions), as well as the necessary analytical techniques utilized in uncovering fraud and its prevention through effective detection systems.
MSCJ 834 An Academic Approach to Investigative Technique and Management
The most common method by which investigative personnel learn proper investigative techniques is through the rote method, more commonly referred to “OJT” (on-the job-training) in the professional world. As practitioners move into supervisory and management positions, a more scientific foundation in all phase of the investigative technique- data collection, analysis, advanced interviewing techniques, report writing, case management, and courtroom/deposition testimony is required. The advanced practitioner will often be called upon to interact with corporate level personnel, ranking police authorities, and to establish training programs and protocols for department heads as well as frontline personnel. This course will provide the academically-rooted understanding of key phases of the investigative technique, from the original opening of an investigation through the ultimate conclusion either in the courtroom or the boardroom.
MSCJ 835 Specialized Investigations: Retail Fraud
This course will provide insight into the mechanics of various forms of retail theft, including but not limited to: the many facets of cashier theft, return fraud, back door receiving theft, vendor/merchandiser theft, external theft types such price tag manipulations, collusion with employees, supply line/distribution channel thefts, and single and multi-unit level accounting frauds. Review of available research concerning the thought process of theft offenders will be conducted to hopefully gain an insight into the motivations, and lack of concern/fear of countermeasures by the offenders.
MSCJ 836 Organized Retail Crime
The challenge of organized retail crime has been realized by the retail sector for many years but it is now only understood and accepted as a true crime type by state and federal legislative bodies. Organized retail crime (ORC) can best be described as gangs, individuals acting in concert with others, or cohesive (loosely knit or highly structured) groups that engage in theft and fraudulent activities with the focus of obtaining large quantities of retail merchandise, including gift card frauds. The thefts can occur at the manufacturing, distribution, wholesaler, or end retail market. This course will provide participants with an understanding of the operationalizations of ORC, current technological and non-technological countermeasures, and the current status of ORC legislation as well as the future of deterrent efforts.
MSCJ 841 Homeland Security and Emergency Management Anchor Course
The organization and operation of Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will be examined in detail in this course covering major topics related to homeland security and emergency management including a history and organization of DHS, a review of key legislation, laws, and directives, introduction to basic concepts of infrastructure protection, risk management, threat assessment and prioritization, jurisdiction and coordination between agencies (public and private agency interface, military and emergency agencies), issues in communication, hazard response teams, contingency of operations planning (COOP), basic threats and counter-terrorism strategies, public health and emergency preparedness.
MSCJ 842 Operations Research
An important part of leadership and management across all sectors of social and economic life consists of defining and solving many types of problems. Inherent in the problem solving process is the task of decision-making. The best decisions are those that are made based on empirical analytics. Such decisions usually require the use of data. In this class, the overall objective will be to improve student’s ability to model situations and analyze data to make intelligent, fact-based decisions.
MSCJ 843 Critical Incident Analysis
Defining and analyzing critical incidents using a formalized case study approach is a new practice in what is an emerging field, ‘emergency management’. This course is designed to teach students how to approach analyzing incidents from an empirical perspective and by applying the Critical Incident Theoretical Model pioneered by the Academy for Critical Incident Analysis (ACIA) at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. In-class emphasis will begin with an exploration of the problems of operationalizing what is meant by a “critical incident” and the related data collection and analysis problems. From there the students will be introduced to the ACIA model and will endeavor, through group activities which place much emphasis on peer review and critical analysis.
MSCJ 844 Fundamentals of Emergency Management
This course examines emergency management which involves the process of preparation, planning, mitigation, response and recovery in connection with an emergency or disaster. As we shall explore, these dynamic processes are undertaken by local, state, tribal and the federal government, as well as businesses and industries to protect people, property and the environment from the consequences of natural or human-made emergencies and disasters. This course will explore the history and current development of emergency management in the United States at both the local, state and federal levels, and cover in detail what takes place in each of the phases of the emergency management process. We will also review the process of BCP within the private sector, which provides focus-driven preparedness for businesses within the context of the necessary external factors such as survival of the greater infrastructure that has to be protected by public safety. Case studies and emergency planning exercises for the private and public sectors will be utilized in the course for each phase of emergency management.
MSCJ 846 Data Mining for Intelligence Analysis
Knowledge Discovery in Databases (KDD), or “Data Mining”, is the process of discovering meaningful new correlations, patterns and trends by sifting through data stored in repositories. KDD is an interdisciplinary area, drawing upon research in statistics, databases, pattern recognition, machine learning, data visualization, optimization, and high-performance computing. This course will present data mining techniques that have proven to be effective in recognizing patterns and making predictions within various application settings. We will survey the existing applications of data mining, and provide an opportunity for hands-on experimentation with data mining algorithms using XL DataMiner (a 3rd-party add-on for Excel). The principle focus of the course will be to explore and develop novel applications of data mining techniques to the analysis corporate security, criminal justice, and critical incident data.
MSCJ 847 Emergency Crisis and Victim Response
In the event of an emergency, such as a natural disaster or act of terrorism, victims are often the immediate focus as first responders work to save lives and minimize damage. Victim assistance and advocacy is often provided by caring citizens and emergency workers, but the effects of victimization are pervasive and the need for trained professionals equipped to assist victims of these events throughout the process is critical. The purpose of this course is to learn about the types of events that lead to victimization outside of interpersonal crime, the effects of these events on victims, and the skills and resources in place to provide immediate and on-going crisis intervention for the people who survive these events and for those are left behind when lives are lost.
MSCJ 851 Information and Cyber Data Intelligence
The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the prescient technical, legal, and ethical concerns associated with the acquisition and analysis of large tracts of digitized mico-level and macro-level data. The work begins with a review of the topical policy and key technologies that are employed by practitioners. This includes an introduction to how these advanced research methods are used by practitioners and their theoretical foundations. From there the course will explore the concept of privacy and the ethical dilemmas associated with the use of these technologies. The course concludes with a review of “good” and “bad” cases where the assemblage of technologies and policies has led to socially desired and undesired consequences.
MSCJ 852 Cyber Surveillance Law and Governance
The purpose of this course is to extend the students understanding of the legal and oversight frameworks that define and delimit both private and sector practitioners with respect to symbiotic domains of cyber and surveillance. Students are introduced to an analytical approach that integrates the legal philosophy and notions of “privacy” with those of oversight and accountability- students are taught to view the latter as a means to the former. The course begins with a review of privacy and uses that as an entrée to understanding the theories of governance. From there the course delves into applying these concepts to three distinct domains of application, law enforcement, public (civil) records, and private records. This course is explicitly designed to have students learn the nuances of the relevant case law and understand the practical limitations and prospects of it.
MSCJ 853 Forensic Management of Digital Evidence
This course presents an overview of digital evidence and computer crime by focusing on a systematic approach to investigating a crime based on the scientific method. Topics are data recovery, remote storage, file systems of various systems and procedure and tools for properly collecting and examining digital evidence from computers. This course demonstrates how computers are extensions of traditional crime scenes and how the associated digital evidence can be useful in a variety of investigations including computer intrusions and violent crimes.
MSCJ 854 Geo-Spatial and Crime Mapping Analysis
This advanced quantitative methods course incorporates GIS (geographic information systems) into risk analysis and criminal justice by including the use of crime mapping and analysis into problem solving. The course synthesizes theory and application into a hands-on approach to many of the issues a risk management, loss prevention, or crime analyst will face in pursuit of their work. Critical examples from practice and research that demonstrate applications of geo-spatial, hot-spot, and crime mapping and their effect in many areas of crime prevention, loss-prevention, and risk analysis are assessed.
MSCJ 855 Cyber Criminology
This course seeks to further understanding of cyber deviance and its control. It is an advanced theory-based course that extends the criminological curriculum of the core theory course and explicitly extends in into the realm of cyber criminals and criminality. We consider selected problematic social, legal, and policy issues associated with the rapid global growth in the use of the Internet and digital devices in everyday life and commerce.
MSCJ 856 Cybercrime and Digital Law Enforcement
The emergence of modern information-based societies in which the exercise of economic, political, and social power increasingly depends on the opportunities to access, manipulate, and use information and information infrastructure has created opportunities for new crimes and new threats to civil society and global security, as well as for new law enforcement and national security responses. This course explores how a "networked" world has bred new crimes and new responses, and investigates how information and communication technology (ICT) has become a tool, a target, and a place of criminal activity and national security threats, as well as a mechanism of response.