Criminal Justice | Troy University

Criminal Justice

About the Criminal Justice Degree

Whether you dream of pursuing a career in law enforcement, forensics or law, TROY’s bachelor’s degree in criminal justice offers you options to help you set a course for a fulfilling and successful career.

Prepare for a bright future

TROY’s bachelor’s in criminal justice will provide you with exciting programs that will help prepare you for a wide variety of career opportunities. Within your courses, you’ll learn about the criminal justice system from knowledgeable instructors with real-life experiences. These faculty members will help you gain a comprehensive understanding of law enforcement, the courts and corrections and equip you with the knowledge needed to assist in shaping criminal justice policy.

Explore your options

As a criminal justice major, you’ll study the agencies and processes involved in the administration of criminal justice. You’ll also dive into the areas of law enforcement, corrections, constitutional law, criminology and law and criminal procedure. These required courses serve as an academic cornerstone as you explore each area of criminal justice to find the perfect fit for you, whether that’s as a police officer, a crime scene investigator or pursuing a career as an attorney. You can also add value and skills to your degree by choosing to minor in digital forensics or homeland security.

Digital forensics minor

If you have a knack for computers and technology and a natural talent for investigation, a minor in digital forensics would complement your criminal justice major by helping you develop a highly marketable skill. Your courses will allow you hands-on work with digital evidence and software tools used in the field. While in one course you may get the chance to work with a mock physical crime scene, in another, you may have the opportunity to create forensic images and analyze the results. By the end of the program, you will have worked with digital forensics cases from start to completion, including legal issues, and you will have covered a range of criminal cases involving crimes such as hacking, child pornography, financial fraud, identity theft, murder and terrorism.

Homeland security minor

Pursuing a minor in homeland security adds value to your bachelor’s in criminal justice by helping you better understand the organizations and processes that have been created to secure the United States against the threat of any foreign or domestic attack. As you study, you’ll have opportunities to learn how homeland security has changed since Sept. 11, 2001, as well as the steps it takes to plan for and recover from various crises with focus placed on the roles and responsibilities of national, regional and local response teams. As you progress in your studies, you’ll also critically examine and analyze major issues such as the development of terrorism in today’s modern world, and compare and examine the world’s criminal justice systems.

Accelerated Law Option Available

In 2015, TROY partnered with Thomas Goode Jones and Cumberland schools of law to become the first college in the state of Alabama to offer its students a way to complete their bachelor’s and Juris Doctor degrees within six years. Today, as part of this major studying within the University’s accelerated law program, you will begin an academic journey leading you to your junior year where, upon the careful consideration of your GPA and LSAT scores, you will have the opportunity to apply to law school at Thomas Goode Jones School of Law in Montgomery, Cumberland School of Law in Birmingham and now to the Mississippi College of Law. Programs are highly selective, and once chosen by one of the schools, you will begin your legal studies there. After your first year of law school, your GPA at Jones, Cumberland or Mississippi will be evaluated, and if there are no objections, you will receive your bachelor’s degree from TROY as if you’d been attending our classes throughout your senior year. At this point, only two years of law school remain before you sit for the Alabama State Bar exam. Now, that’s a deal, and it can only be found at Troy University.

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Program Locations

  • Troy Campus
  • TROY Online

TROY senior finding success with her own café

small business owner Charmin Harvey outside her cafe

Charmin Harvey kept hearing the same complaint from her fellow Troy University students: why doesn’t Troy, Alabama, have a restaurant focusing on smoothies?

In the fall of 2019, her senior year, Harvey decided to tackle that problem head-on, creating Sherman’s Smoothie Café, a place where TROY students and Troy residents alike can buy homemade fruit smoothies, juice and a variety of sandwiches and pastries.

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