University of Maryland Excels at Teaching Criminology Research

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Students relax and study on McKeldin Mall at the University of Maryland in College Park, Maryland, a suburb of Washington.

Washington — The University of Maryland (UMD) offers a perennially top-ranked program in one of the fastest-growing fields of study and employment: criminology and criminal justice. Since its creation in 1969 as a distinct entity, the university’s Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice (CCJS) has become a national and international leader in criminal justice education and in research on such topics as crime and delinquency, law enforcement, juvenile justice, criminology, courts and corrections, and terrorism.

The Maryland program was first out of 28 criminology and criminal justice doctoral programs ranked by U.S. News and World Report magazine in 2009, according to the CCJS website. Outstanding faculty is the biggest reason for the program’s success, says Sally Simpson, professor and former chairwoman of the department.

Faculty members’ research “is high-quality, it’s cutting edge, it’s salient, and that translates into a terrific doctoral program,” Simpson said in an interview. “They publish with their graduate students, they train the graduate students, who then go out and continue the tradition.”

Weiwei Liu, a doctoral candidate from China during the 2008–2009 academic year, said the most important aspect of her experience in the program was her “interaction with faculty members and research experience … gained through working with them.” She found the program “very challenging” when she first entered with a master’s degree in sociology and described her experience as very satisfactory. “I think no other program will match this one,” she said.

Liu was among the 10 percent of students enrolled in the masters and doctoral programs from 2008 to 2009 who were international students, said Simpson, adding that “the majority of them come to us with a social science background.” CCJS currently has 58 masters and doctoral candidates, of whom 7.25 percent are from foreign countries.

“Doctoral programs mainly are interested in training students in research,” Simpson said. “That’s really what our faculty do and are very good at doing. We bring in a lot of grant money and students get the opportunity to work on projects that are in areas of great interest.”

One example is the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), said Simpson. START, which is directed by Gary LaFree, a professor of criminology and criminal justice, is one of 12 U.S. Department of Homeland Security centers of excellence throughout the United States that bring together leading experts and researchers to work on specific homeland security challenges. START is tasked with developing a better understanding of the terrorist radicalization process and the evolution of terrorist groups, and with strengthening the resilience of U.S. citizens in the face of terrorist threats.

“That’s a good example of how our faculty provides opportunities for students to do research in cutting-edge areas,” Simpson said.

 

She also cited CCJS’s program in life-course criminology, which seeks to understand delinquency and crime over the entire span of people’s lives — another “critical area of research” in which the department excels, Simpson said.

Liu said her most valuable learning experiences were working as a research assistant at the department and at UMD’s Center for Substance Abuse Research (CESAR), which examines the problems drug and alcohol abuse create for individuals, families and communities.

“For me, learning how to conduct research is like an apprenticeship,” she said. “Through the interaction with my academic adviser, Dr. Hanno Petras, and other professors, I gained valuable experience, from starting a research idea all the way through submitting a manuscript for publication.” The experience, Liu said, helped prepare her to work as an independent researcher.

Liu said the size of UMD’s program gives students flexibility. “No matter what you are interested in, it is almost guaranteed that you can find a faculty member who is also interested in it.”

The program is “very interdisciplinary, which I think is attractive to students,” Simpson said. In addition to faculty with backgrounds in criminology and criminal justice, the department has psychologists, economists and sociologists.

Liu also cited the location of the University of Maryland at College Park in the Washington area as providing students with “unique resources” and “great opportunities to gain research experiences.”

The University of Maryland also offers a master’s degree in criminal justice in collaboration with Nanjing Normal University of China. UMD faculty members travel to China to teach classes in the program, while students also take elective courses at the Nanjing Normal Law School. Some of the students come to the United States for three months to six months to work on their independent study projects.

“As our programs become more visible and people internationally are interested in the kind of training that we can offer — especially in quantitative analysis … a lot of people come here to get the training that they need to go back and do some evidence-based kinds of research in their own countries focused around their criminal justice systems, how they operate, how the programs work or don’t work,” Simpson said. “The global interest of people in issues of justice is another reason these programs are becoming more and more popular.”

For more information, see the websites of the University of Maryland’s Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology and National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism.