Criminology and Criminal Justice, MS

The program consists of two required theory courses (8 credits), two required methods courses (6-8 credits), and three-four electives courses from a list of over two dozen options that cover intelligence and homeland security, civil rights and liberties, corrections, restorative justice, juvenile justice, gender, sexuality and justice, immigration, media, white collar crime, environmental justice, and government and nonprofit leadership, among other topics. You'll also have the option to complete a master's thesis grounded in your own independent research.

At UM-Dearborn, we understand the value of practical experience. You’ll get the chance to apply your acquired knowledge in practice-oriented learning environments, giving you the real-world experience that potential employers appreciate. Through a combination of theory, methods, and applied courses,you'll develop skills in research, criminology and criminal justice program planning and evaluation, and the organization and administration of public criminal justice systems.

For example, share a transformative learning environment with state inmates in the Inside Out Prison Exchange (CRJ 476/576), a course that co-enrolls UM-Dearborn students and incarcerated students taught inside a correctional facility. 

Or, investigate decades-old cases with local law enforcement through our Cold Case Partnership.

More opportunities for hands-on experiences are available in our internship, research, and study abroad programs. Check out the pages for these programs, and talk to your professors to learn more.

Admission to the Master’s program is at the discretion of the Graduate Program Director in consultation with Graduate Program faculty and the Office of Graduate Studies.

• Completion of a Bachelor's degree with at least a 3.0 undergraduate GPA

• Completion of the following courses or equivalent:

◦ CRJ 200 Introduction to Criminal Justice

◦ CRJ 468 Criminology

◦ CRJ 488 Criminal Law & Procedure

Applicants who meet the GPA requirement but lack one or more required courses may be admitted conditionally with the permission of the Program Director. These course deficiencies may be completed concurrently with graduate courses in the program upon Program Director approval.

Dr. Francine Banner

• Dr. Francine Banner is Professor and Chair of Behavioral Sciences at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. She is an attorney whose research explores the varied ways in which law interacts with everyday life. Her latest book, Beyond Complicity: Why We Blame Each Other Instead of Systems (UC Press, 2024), explores how individual cycles of shame and blame detract from institutional accountability and provides suggestions for working toward positive, systemic social change.

Dr. Maya Pagni Barak 

• Dr. Maya Barak is an Associate Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice and affiliate of Women's and Gender Studies and Arab American Studies at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. She is also the Graduate Director of the Criminology and Criminal Justice Graduate Program. She holds a PhD in Justice, Law and Criminology from American University. Her research brings together the areas of law, fairness, immigration, and power, utilizing interdisciplinary approaches that span the fields of criminology, law and society, and anthropology. Dr. Barak has carried out extensive research in the areas of immigration, policing, and capital punishment. This includes studies of procedural justice among Occupy Wall Street protesters and Guatemalan-Mayan immigrants, policing practices among the Honduran National Police, the transnational capacity of MS-13 in the United States and El Salvador, the last words of those on death row, and the legal profession. She is the author of two books: The Slow Violence of Immigration Court: Procedural Justice on Trial (2023, NYU Press) and Capital Defense: Inside the Lives of America’s Death Penalty Lawyers (2019, NYU Press), coauthored with Dr. Jon Gould. Select scholarship appears in: Critical and Intersectional Gang Studies; Criminology & Public Policy; Latino Studies; Policing & Society; Forced Out and Fenced In: Immigration Tales from the Field; and, Routledge International Handbook on the Crimes of the Powerful.

Dr. Kathleen Darcy

• Dr. Kathleen Darcy is an Assistant Professor in Criminology and Criminal Justice Studies. She holds a PhD from Michigan State University in Criminal Justice, a Master's degree from University of Chicago with an interdisciplinary focus on law, criminal justice, history, and human rights, and a BA from University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. Dr. Darcy also holds a law degree from Michigan State University College of Law and is licensed to practice law in Michigan. Her research is interdisciplinary and primarily focuses on examining gender inequity, especially how the law impacts those affected by gender-based violence, especially when abuse occurs in institutional settings (e.g., prison, higher education, the military). Her research also explores trust and betrayal and corresponding harms. She has published in such outlets as Criminal Justice Policy Review, Feminist Criminology, Law and Human Behavior, Cornell Law Review, and Women’s Rights Law Reporter. 

Dr. Paul Draus

• Dr. Paul Draus is a Professor of Sociology and Director of the University of Michigan’s Detroit Center. Dr. Draus holds a Ph.D. in sociology from Loyola University Chicago, as well as a master’s degree in American studies from the University of Wyoming. His doctoral research examined the social context of tuberculosis in urban environments during the 1990s. He was a UM-Dearborn provost faculty fellow in 2019-20, and a U.S. Fulbright Scholar to Lithuania in 2023. Long active in community-based teaching and research in metropolitan Detroit, he received the Michigan Campus Compact Community Service-Learning Award in 2014. Since joining the UM-Dearborn faculty, he has published extensively on topics ranging from substance abuse and street sex work to prison education and urban agriculture. His current work focuses on expanding access to natural spaces in post-industrial cities as a form of restorative justice, or “green reparations.”

Dr. Kevin Early

• Dr. Kevin Early is a criminologist and Associate Professor of Sociology. He specializes in criminology, corrections, alcohol and drug behavior, and deviance. Dr. Early is also a Certified Criminal Justice Specialist (CCJS), Certified Advanced Alcohol and Drug Counselor (CAADC), and Internationally Certified Advanced Alcohol and Drug Counselor with more than thirty-five years’ experience in the fields of mental health, corrections, and substance abuse. Besides publications in death and dying, race and ethnic relations, prison-based treatment, and corrections, Dr. Early is the author of Religion and Suicide in the African-American Community (Greenwood, 1992), the coauthor of Nameless Persons: Legal Discrimination Against Non-Marital Children in America (Praeger, 1994), Drug Treatment Behind Bars: Prison-Based Strategies for Change (Edited/Praeger, 1996), and Criminal Justice in Michigan (Allyn and Bacon, Supplement, 2005).

Dr. Nehal Patel

• Dr. Nehal Patel is an Associate Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice and Sociology. He has begun a series of undertakings called the Mindful Law Project, which aims to develop social & legal thought through the thought of Gandhi and the insights of meditative & contemplative traditions. His current projects involve applications of Gandhi’s thought to environmental justice and to LGBTQ civil rights. His projects further the inclusion of non-western thought in academic inquiry & the liberal arts. Currently, he is interested in connecting recent research on mindfulness meditation & consciousness to social & legal theory. He also is interested in multi-method scholarship and has used several research methodologies: experimental, quantitative, qualitative interview, document/text & film analysis, and case method.

Dr. Amny Shuraydi

• Dr. Amny Shuraydi is an Assistant Professor in Criminology and Criminal Justice Studies and an affiliate of the Center for Arab American Studies and Middle East Studies and Women’s and Gender Studies programs at the University of Michigan-Dearborn.  In addition, she currently oversees the Cold Case Partnership with the Monroe County Sheriff’s Department. Her research interests include comparative and cultural criminology, social justice, and prevention/rehabilitation. She has conducted research on a variety of topics, including Arab American and Muslim communities, white-collar crime, and prisons. She is a recipient of the 2024 Anti-Racism Research & Community Impact Faculty Fellowship. 

Lecturers

Jeffrey Frost

• Jeffrey Frost is a LEO faculty member in Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. He holds a Ph.D. in Criminal Justice/Law Enforcement Administration from the University of Illinois at Chicago, as well as a Senior Executive Service (SES) Certification from the Office of Personnel Management. He is also a veteran of the United States Secret Service with wide-ranging domestic and international experience in physical protection of the President and Vice President of the United States, facility security, counterintelligence, IT security, as well as, a comprehensive understanding of various security and intelligence community cultures, organizational structures, and operational modes. His research interests include procedural justice and complex transnational cyber investigations.

Richard Johnson

• Richard Johnson is currently the Director of Research and Academics with the Dolan Consulting Group, LLC, a public safety consulting firm. Prior to joining the University of Michigan-Dearborn, he was a tenured faculty member at the University of Toledo, leaving at the rank of full professor. Dr. Johnson earned his undergraduate degree from Indiana University, his master’s degree from Indiana State University, and his doctorate in criminal justice from the University of Cincinnati. To date, he has authored 50 research articles in peer-reviewed academic journals. His research has primarily focused on the psychology of police-citizen interactions, effective strategies for police field supervision, and effective interventions for domestic violence.

Judge Annette Jurkiewicz Berry

• Judge Annette Jurkiewicz Berry is a LEO faculty member in Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. She holds a JD from Michigan State University’s College of Law. She is a Circuit Court Judge with the Third Judicial Circuit of Michigan, as well as head of the three Michigan Judicial Associations, Michigan Judges Association, Michigan Probate Judges Association, and Michigan District Judges Association. Prior to being elected to the court, Judge Berry was an Assistant Attorney General with the Michigan Department of the Attorney General. 

Aaron Kinzel

• Aaron T. Kinzel is a LEO faculty member in Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. Kinzel's teaching and research areas of expertise are education, corrections, and public policy. He is a consultant that has worked nationally on criminal justice reform and completed contracts with numerous organizations, including the U.S. Department of Justice. Kinzel's childhood was surrounded by poverty and crime with many of his family members having justice system involvement. He spent nearly a decade incarcerated as a teenager and is passionate about humanizing correctional populations. Research areas include: Carceral State, Criminal Justice, Criminology, Prison Education, Public Policy, and Violence.

David Moore 

• David Moore a LEO faculty member in Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Michigan-Dearborn and a former police detective with the Detroit Police Department.

Greg Osowski

• Greg Osowski is a LEO faculty member in Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. He holds an MA in Criminal Justice/Law Enforcement Administration from the University of Detroit Mercy. He was a police supervisor with the Detroit Police Department for 25 years. He is also the former Director of the Criminal Justice Program at Henry Ford Community College. 

Scott Macek

• Scott Macek is a LEO faculty member in Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. He holds an MS in Law Enforcement Intelligence from Michigan State University and a JD from Wayne State University School of Law. Mr. Macek has been employed as an Intelligence Analyst with the FBI since 2004, with a focus on international terrorism. He returned from a 2 year assignment at the FBI Academy in Quantico, VA, where he taught intelligence concepts to brand new Special Agents and Intelligence Analysts for the FBI.