Program Overview

Expand your knowledge and build upon your academic foundation in the criminal justice system with the Master of Arts in Criminal Justice in the College of Liberal Arts at Temple University.

Temple’s Criminal Justice MA is ideal for students who already work in the criminal justice field, for those who seek to sharpen critical skills in a criminal justice-related field and for those who seek an entry point for a competitive job in the area of criminal justice. Students entering the program have experience in a variety of areas related to criminal justice, including

• Counseling,
• Geography,
• Political science,
• Psychology
• Social work and
• Sociology.

Other students pursue their master’s degree with an interest in continuing their education and research in a doctoral program. Department of Criminal Justice students and faculty are highly involved in local and national research activities. Learn more about the Department of Criminal Justice faculty.

The Criminal Justice MA program allows students to take electives and pursue research in several different areas, based on their personal and professional interests. Examples of these areas of interest include

• Corrections,
• Crime and the physical/social environment,
• Criminal justice reform and policymaking,
• Criminal law,
• Cybercrime,
• Crime mapping,
• Drug policy/substance use and misuse
• Law enforcement,
• Juvenile justice,
• Gun violence and community crime reduction,
• Prisoner reentry,
• Public health and criminal justice,
• Socialization and deviant behavior, and
• Terrorism and violent extremism.

The interdisciplinary 30-credit master’s program is structured around a set of core requirements that provide a strong grounding in decision-making and operational aspects of the criminal justice system, and a legal, methodological, policy and theoretical foundation for understanding crime and society.