CJA 344 – Theories of Crime & Criminal Justice Policy

Purpose: to help other instructors teaching the same course

Common Course ID:  CJA 344
CSU Instructor Open Textbook Adoption Portrait

Abstract: This open textbook is being utilized in a Criminal Justice Administration course for undergraduate students by Dr. Sarah Britto at California State University Dominguez Hills. The open textbook provides basic coverage of criminological theories, which provides foundational content for CJA 344 – Theories of Crime and Criminal Justice Policy. The main motivation to adopt an open textbook was to ensure that cost was not a barrier for our students’ ability to get the most out of this course. Most students access the open textbook in online through a link embedded in Canvas.

CJA 344 – Theories of Crime & Criminal Justice Policy
Brief Description of course highlights:  CJA 344 - Examines theories of crime and criminal justice policy. Covers definitions of crime, its measurement, and patterns across time and place. This is used to evaluate historical and contemporary politics in criminal justice administration.

Student population: CJA 344 is a core course requirement for all Criminal Justice Administration majors. There are no prerequisites for the course, and the course may be taken online, in-person or in hybrid format. 

Learning or student outcomes:  After participating in this course, you will be able to:
1. Articulate your voice in an academic setting.
2. Explain the central tenets of each of the following major criminological theories: Classical criminology (choice/rational choice theories), Positivism, Sociological theories (structure and process theories), Critical theory (conflict, Marxist, etc.), and Environmental theories. (Knowledge)
3. Identify the major criminological theorists and describe the components of their theories.(Knowledge)
4. Incorporate insight from multicultural perspectives into your understanding of the crime problem and crime theory. (Diversity)
5. Evaluate and contrast each of the major theoretical schools of criminology, identifying the strengths, weaknesses, and policy implications of each. (Critical Thinking)
6. Apply various theoretical explanations to offender behavior. (Critical Thinking)
7. Analyze contemporary crime control policies and crime problems in light of criminological theories and research on crime commission, crime control, crime prevention, and both the punishment and rehabilitation of offenders. (Critical Thinking and Information Literacy)
8. Demonstrate the ability to access information from library, Internet, and agency sources and critically synthesize and incorporate this information into written work (Information Literacy)

Syllabus and/or Sample assignment from the course or the adoption: Students regularly incorporate content from the textbook into reflection assignments, group projects, class discussions and papers.

Textbook or OER/Low cost Title: Introduction to Criminology: An Equity Lens

Brief Description:  This textbook introduces students to criminological theory through an equity lens. Students are provided with the historical foundations of criminological theories and are challenged to critically reflect on each theory and its ongoing impact on criminal justice policy and practice.

Please provide a link to the resource  
https://openoregon.pressbooks.pub/criminologyintro1e/

Authors:  Jessica René Peterson and Taryn VanderPyl

Student access:  Most students access the open textbook in online through a link embedded in Canvas.

Supplemental resources:  Although the textbook does not come with supplemental resources, it is only one of many learning materials used in the course. Articles, videos, and interactive assignments are used throughout the course. 

Provide the cost savings from that of a traditional textbook.  The cost savings is $67; The previous book being used was Criminological Theory by Tibbetts, which costs $67 as an ebook.

License*: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

OER/Low Cost Adoption Process
Please provide an explanation or what motivated you to use this textbook or OER/Low Cost.  I had been using a low-cost textbook for years, but when the publisher raised the price above $50, I decided to look for an OER textbook so that the cost of a textbook would never be a barrier to students’ ability to access course material.

How did you find and select the open textbook for this course?  It took some time to find an appropriate book for this course. I talked with other faculty, a librarian, browsed MERLOT and other OER sites with limited success, and finally I found it through a traditional Google search.

Sharing Best Practices:   I think that it is important to give up on finding the perfect resource and open yourself up to finding resources that when pieced together will allow students to get the content they need to critically engage with the course content.

Describe any challenges you experienced, and lessons learned.  One challenge that I’ve faced is finding a book or article that works well for a course that is accessible online through the library and then having the library subscription to the material change (likely due to budget cuts). Librarians have been great at helping me find alternatives, but I now make sure that the materials that I will be using for a course are still available right before the course starts.

Instructor Name - Sarah Britto
I am a Criminal Justice Administration professor at the California State University Dominguez Hills. 

Please provide a link to your university page.
https://www.csudh.edu/cbapp/contact-us/faculty/sarahbritto

Please describe the courses/course numbers that you teach.
I regularly teach UNV 101 - Law & Order: CSU as part of a Public Service & Justice First-Year Interest Group,
CJA 339 – Research Methods & Communication in Criminal Justice Administration (which is a GWAR course).
CJA 344 – Theories of Crime & Criminal Justice Policy.

Describe your teaching philosophy and any research interests related to your discipline or teaching.  I try to meet students where they are at to guide their active engagement with course content, and skill building in communication, information literacy, and critical thinking, as they navigate their concurrent life experiences. I imagine my classroom (virtual and in-person) as a small community within the larger CSUDH community. Supporting this community means valuing the cultural knowledge and lived experiences students bring to the classroom and challenging students to critically explore social justice issues, the criminal justice system, criminology, and public policy.

My research focuses on the forces that shape crime-related public perceptions, such as fear of crime, support for capital punishment, attitudes toward the police, and support for gun control. I’ve also published articles on gender inequality and violent crime and co-authored the book “In the Shadow of Death: Restorative Justice and Death Row Families.” In addition, I co-direct the CBAPP Belong Series that focuses on fostering belonging and building academic identity to support retention and progress toward graduation.