Master of Science in Criminal Justice
The MSA with specialization in Criminal Justice is an interdisciplinary degree offered entirely online and is designed to prepare students for leadership roles in public, nonprofit and private organizations in the field of juvenile and criminal justice. Coursework also prepares students for admission to doctoral programs and professional schools.
Core Requirements and Criminal Justice Specialization Requirements : The MSA degree has a set of required core courses that provide the foundation for managerial leadership and business skills. Students complete 12 semester hours in the business core and 21 semester hours of criminal justice specialization courses.
The UWF catalog lists the core requirements and criminal justice specialization courses 
for the MSA-CJ program.
Degree Plan and Course Rotation
To assist in planning your courses and for advising: Specialization Course Rotation(.doc) and MSA-CJ Degree Plan(.doc)-Updated 4/2008.
Student Learning Outcomes
Students with a MSA in Criminal Justice should be able to do the following:
Content
• Identify, explain, and illustrate important linkages between politics and the administration of criminal justice in America.
• Describe, explain, and identify the origin, development, and current roles of key criminal justice actors.
• Learn and improve the techniques and strategies associated with online learning.
• Identify the principles underlying the restorative justice paradigm.
• Identify the historical and theological roots of restorative justice.
• Identify the paradoxes and contradictions in the heritage of public service.
• Describe current practices and trends in HRM.
• Identify the key paradoxes and challenges in recruitment.
• Describe the tactics for enhancing diversity in the workforce.
• Identify differences in orientation and behavior between unions and management.
• Identify the basic concepts and techniques necessary to understand the research process.
• Identify and discuss the principles of organizational behavior and apply these concepts to the criminal justice system.
• Describe the criminal justice system in terms of its internal and external environments.
Critical Thinking
• Identify a conceptual framework for analyzing the research problem.
• Conduct library and internet research on contemporary issues and problems found among key criminal justice agencies.
• Construct an evaluation framework for the critical analysis of American criminal justice agencies.
• Compare and contrast restorative and retributive justice models.
• Explain how restorative justice programs can be evaluated.
• Develop a basic conceptual framework for thinking about organizational budgeting.
• Apply concepts and analytical skills to policy and administrative decisions regarding the allocation of resources to organizational objectives.
• Evaluate the changing environment, key principles, and operating characteristics of public HRM.
• Contrast the different uses of position classification.
• Evaluate emerging efforts for improving the public HRM function.
• Assess research reports and use research in criminal justice practice.
• Evaluate the function of agencies in the criminal justice system from an organizational perspective.
• Identify and discuss the various ways in which decisions are made within an organization and what constitutes organizational effectiveness.
Communication
• Students will be able to present a statement of an applied research question or problem that is relevant to his/her field or discipline.
• Students will be able to analyze and present the results of the research findings.
• Students will be able to discuss how the research findings address the research problem research findings.
• Apply key principles of evaluation methodology to write up analytical critiques of criminal justice agencies.
• Explain the relationship between reintegrative shaming and restorative justice, crime theories and crime prevention and treatment.
• Explain the advantages and drawbacks of typical types of performance appraisal.
• Explain the process of research as a rational and systematically organized sequence of events.
• Interpret statistical analyses.
Integrity/Values
• Evaluate assumptions about the role of the offender, victim, church, state, and community in the context of crime and justice.
• Identify the framework of law in public HRM.
• Recognize paradoxical dimensions in the selection process.
• Recognize that a compensation system is the result of law and policy, labor market, job evaluation, and personal contribution.
• Identify and define the factors that tend to increase or alleviate conflict within a group and apply knowledge of these factors to an analysis of a given criminal justice situation.
• Describe the role that occupational socialization, power, and conflict platy in a criminal justice environment.
Project Management
• Identify and implement a methodology for examining the research
• Students will be able to produce a major applied research paper that will be useful and relevant in his/her field or discipline
• Justify and use various research designs and outline the different purposes of research.
• Prepare basic approaches to data collection methods.
• Justify and use various statistical methods for analyzing data.
• Plan, implement, and evaluate changes that are made within a criminal justice agency.
Admissions Requirements
The Criminal Justice Administration specialization requires an undergraduate degree from an accredited institution in a related field, submission of your college transcript and scores on the GRE prior to admission, a letter of intent and three letters of reference including one from an employer and one from a former college professor.
The university's graduate admissions requirements can be found in the UWF catalog.
Apply for admission on-line at http://uwf.edu/admissions/happsus.htm.
Tuition Waivers- Waivers to cover the out-of-state portion of assessed tuition and fees are available for qualified students enrolled in the MSA-CJ online degree program at the University of West Florida.
Note: Waivers must be requested and eligibility confirmed every semester – renewal of waivers is NOT automatic.
Below is the tuition and fee waiver for Summer 2008 online courses. For more information go to Online Campus.
Graduate Tuition & Fees |
Per credit hour |
FLA Resident |
$265.47 |
Non-FLA Resident (w/waiver) |
$291.89 |
Find Out More about MSA in Criminal Justice at UWF:
http://uwf.edu/msaprogram/msa-cja.html
