Abstract
Internships have been viewed as an important component of many disciplines, including criminal justice. Most studies on the use of internships in criminal justice, however, have been program-specific discussions and have not focused on how they are used in general. This study uses a nationwide survey of 99 programs to ascertain the organization, application, implementation, and evaluation of internships in criminal justice. The data reveal that although there are some differences in how programs use these internships, there are also a number of similarities. Implications for changes based on these results are addressed.
Notes
Ross and Elechi (Citation2002) noted that almost all of the field supervisors for their interns recommended that the intern receive at least an A-minus in the course. While the researchers did not state the average grade that was actually assigned in the class, this finding suggests the possibility of inflating grades for internships.
Although the wording was changed on many questions to enhance clarity, we neglected to find all problems with the instrument; the responses for one question were identical. Fortunately, respondents corrected the error.
The publishing company is considered a major resource for criminal justice and criminology textbooks, thus the authors were fairly certain that the list of schools was representative of criminal justice and criminology programs nationally. However, a limitation of this sampling frame is that schools not using this publisher will be excluded.
The program with 3,917 students was a combination criminology and sociology program.
Only two programs noted that their universities were on the quarter system.