It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to Rutgers University-Newark School of Criminal Justice (SCJ). Some of you know the school well, having already completed part of your undergraduate degree at Rutgers-Newark; for others, this will be your first semester. I am sure you are excited to embark on this journey.
The SCJ is proud to present a dynamic curriculum that continually evolves in response to challenges and developments in the criminal legal system. In addition to our core courses on policing, courts, corrections, and reentry, we have recently added courses on drug policy, environmental justice, and sex and sexuality. Many of our classes feature in-depth examinations of an array of issues including systemic racism, the police use of force, and various proposed criminal justice reforms including defunding the police, decarceration, bail reform, and criminal record expungement. Understanding these complex issues requires a solid grounding in theories and research on offending, criminal and social justice, punishment, and other topics that our courses provide. Collectively, we are responsible for thinking about the current state of the criminal legal system, in all its complexities, and for reimagining it in ways that address its liabilities and shortcomings.
The ideas and information we present will sometimes resonate with what you know and believe, but at other times they will challenge what you hold to be true. Exposing you to new data and ways of thinking is central to higher education. Our classes will expand your knowledge; in turn, you will add to ours, sharing with us new ideas and points of view. Your School of Criminal Justice studies will inevitably change you, and we hope that these changes will also contribute to our continuous development as a school and community.
Our mission is to provide learning opportunities that will help prepare you for your careers, and more broadly, for a world in rapid flux. There is much work to be done, whether your focus is our local communities, Newark and its surroundings, other places in the United States, or other nations. It is exciting to be with you at the helm of these momentous changes. As part of the Rutgers-Newark School of Criminal Justice, I look forward to our collaboration in building more equitable and just societies.
Bill McCarthy, Ph.D.
Dean and Professor
Message from the Dean
