This course hub website contains OER/ZTC (Open Educational Resources/Zero Textbook Cost) resources for faculty teaching Criminal Justice and the Urban Community (CRJ 204) at the Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC). These resources are freely available for use by BMCC faculty and beyond.
This work was created by Michelle Ronda, as part of the BMCC Open Education Initiative, which is co-led by the A. Philip Randolph Library and the Center for Excellence in Teaching, Learning, and Scholarship (CETLS). The BMCC Open Education Initiative is supported by the CUNY Office of Library Services (OLS) and funded by the New York State Department of Education.
This course takes a critical approach to the study of crime and justice in urban settings. Course materials examine contemporary crime-related issues that affect urban communities within a historical and sociological context. The course highlights the intersections of deviant behavior and the criminal justice system within the structures of class, race, gender, and power inequalities. Topics explored may include racial profiling, juvenile delinquency, media representations of crime, policing, the war on drugs, and prisoner re-entry. At BMCC, students must have completed both the CRJ 101: Introduction to Criminal Justice course, as well as CRJ 102: Criminology as pre-requisites to enroll in CRJ 204.
The Criminal Justice Program (CRJ) at BMCC, in the Department of Social Sciences, Human Services, and Criminal Justice, is committed to providing students with access to high-quality Open Educational Resources (OER). We have developed our College’s first Zero Textbook Cost degree plan, with leadership from Jean Amaral, BMCC’s Open Knowledge Librarian, permitting students to potentially complete the entire degree by enrolling in courses that use OER, and so incur no textbook costs.
The CRJ Program is also committed to sharing the resources we have developed as widely as possible. On this CRJ 204 Course Hub site, we’ve offered a sample syllabus for the course, as well as supplemental resources for covering the topics commonly included in the course. We strongly encourage all CRJ faculty to embrace OER, or to incorporate some open resources into your courses.
Learning objectives for CRJ 204
All CRJ 204 courses share the same goals for students who take the course. We call these “class objectives,” and all faculty who teach this course are giving students an opportunity to meet these goals over the semester:
- To give students an understanding of the special characteristics of urban settings that affect crime and justice.
- To develop an overall understanding of the current state of problems and solutions regarding crime in urban settings.
- To learn how current urban methods of criminal justice are supported by empirical evidence.
- To teach students the implications of today’s urban crime and justice as it relates to social policy.
We welcome your feedback and questions (here)!
