On Criminal Justice Education
Chapter 1, “On Criminal Justice Education,” gives a philosophical account of criminal justice education from the outside looking in. After receiving my Ph.D. in English, I was hired to teach writing courses in a Department of Criminal Justice, which brought me into close contact with criminal justice students, their personalities and aspirations, and the challenges facing those charged with their academic training. In assessing this situation, I argue that the academic discipline of Criminal Justice encounters two main obstacles, one from popular culture and one from the professions. In popular culture, Criminal Justice is seen as a science as opposed to an art; that is, as a branch of knowledge in which questions are clear and answers are absolute, which are the misconceptions that give rise to the romanticized image of justice in which good battles and conquers evil. As a corrective, the Humanities can offer a vocabulary capable of dealing with crime and justice as human inventions, as opposed to naturally occurring phenomena, which is what they are from a scientific perspective. In the professions, Criminal Justice is said to be about action, not thought, even to the point that intelligence is sometimes treated as a weakness and liability. On this front, the Humanities offer Criminal Justice the rich tradition of rhetorical theory, which strengthens by scrutinizing acts of interpretation.