Criminal Justice Education: Are We Missing One-Third of the Crime Triangle?

Theoretical explanations, systemic response, and policy work on offenders and specific crime types are the backbone of criminal justice curricula in the United States. However, a similar breadth and depth of education on crime victims appear to be lacking in traditional criminal justice curricula, despite voluminous research on victims of crime. In this exploratory study, the authors conducted a content analysis of 679 programs from the Academy of Criminal Justice (ACJS) website directory. Departmental and course-level variables were included in the analysis. Results indicate that while more than half of the programs have faculty with expressed interests in victimization, only 11% of programs studied required coursework on crime victims and/or victimization. Implications of the results are discussed.