The Department of Criminal Justice offers a Doctor of Philosophy in Criminal Justice. The PhD in Criminal Justice prepares graduates for academic careers (e.g., teaching and research) as well as public sector (e.g., research, policy analysis and development, planning, program development and evaluation) organizations.
The program consists of a core curriculum and electives that students may use to develop their particular areas of specialization. The core provides a broad orientation and the electives enable students to develop expertise in a particular field. The curriculum requires 54 credit hours: 18 credit hours of core courses, 18 credit hours of specialization courses, six (6) credit hours of qualifying project, and 12 credit hours of dissertation research. Students qualify for official candidacy to the PhD by satisfactorily completing all course work and the qualifying project.

