UW-Superior offers a Legal Studies major with a concentration in Criminal Justice. It is the region's only undergraduate criminal justice program, preparing students and practicing professionals with the academic foundation they need for a successful career.

We teach students how to think about criminal justice, not how to do criminal justice - a difference between university education and vocational training. Our students explore ways in which police, judicial and correctional agencies operate and relate to the larger political and social world. With a liberal arts emphasis, the program in criminal justice encourages intellectual curiosity and critical thinking as well as oral and written communications - essential skills in a changing world.

The curriculum is both broad and deep, enabling students to critically reflect on the complexity of crime as well as society's responses to it. In addition to classes in criminal justice and legal studies, students can complete courses in accounting, philosophy, political science, social work, and sociology. This multidisciplinary perspective encourages them to achieve a global view of the problem and its solution as well as to probe significant areas of interest. As job opportunities within criminal justice grow, we expect to meet the increasing needs of law enforcement, court and correctional agencies to hire and promote employees required to have completed a university education.

• An internship is part of the criminal justice curriculum. Students have had field experiences with more than 80 agencies serving local, state, and national jurisdictions in the United States and Canada. They include police departments, public defender offices, the U.S. Border Patrol, U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and juvenile detention centers.
• Courses in the curriculum include Managing Criminal Investigations, Fraud Examination, Community Corrections, and Study Abroad opportunities.
• Students can join the award-winning Criminal Justice Student Association where they can compete in regional and national competitions.
• The Criminal Justice Honor Society was awarded the Outstanding New Chapter in the U.S. by the National Criminal Justice Society, Alpha Phi Sigma.
• Students benefit from small classes and one-on-one attention from experienced professors.

 You learn from the best:

Dr. Gary Keveles, Director of the Criminal Justice Program, has forty years of experience. He has served as President of the City of Superior Police and Fire Commission; Wisconsin Criminal Justice Education Association; and Missouri Coalition for Alternatives to imprisonment. He has been an Advisory Committee Member of the Correctional Sciences Program, Wisconsin Indianhead Technical College, and a Confidential Assistant to the Codes (Criminal Justice) committee of the New York States Assembly. His research interests include restorative justice, plea bargaining, gender and crime, as well as corrections.

Dr. Christopher O'Connor is a new Assistant Professor in the program with over eight years of experience researching various facets of deviance, crime and criminal justice. He brings an international perspective to the program having worked in Canada for the last several years. His research interests include auto theft, policing, juvenile justice and delinquency, youth culture, social control, and boom towns.

Students have regularly participated in the regional and national meetings of the American Criminal Justice Association. To see the awards they have won, check out the website: www3.uwsuper.edu/GKEVELES.

What can you do with a degree in Criminal Justice from UW-Superior?

Criminal Justice graduates can be found in a variety of professions. Some go on to graduate or law school.

UW-Superior Alumni are working across the nation in federal, state and local criminal and juvenile justice agencies. They have worked for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, US Marshals Service, US Secret Service, and the Wisconsin Department of Justice. Others have launched careers as attorneys, youth counselors, elected officials, paralegal assistants, military officers, private investigators, probation officers, state patrol officers, and city police officers.

What are our Alumni doing today?

Mark Wakefield, 1998 GraduateJob: U.S. Naval Officer - Chief Finance Officer for Naval Hospital in Rota, Spain

"UW-Superior professors taught me how to patiently and openly contemplate ideas and perspectives on a wide range of contemporary issues." -Mark McGillis, 1988 GraduateJob: Sergeant, Superior Police Department

Justin Patchin, 1998 GraduateJob: Associate Professor of Criminal Justice,UW-Eau Claire

Carrie Dachel, 2005 GraduateJob: Program Manager at Lutheran Social Services "I enjoyed the small class sizes and the availability and concerns that my instructors had for me."

Amber Novoselac, 2006 GraduateJob: Case Manager, Center for Alcohol & Drug Treatment