Doctoral Education in Criminology and Criminal Justice*

* An early version of this article was presented by the first author at the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences Annual Meeting, Baltimore, MD, in March 2006. The authors would like to thank the representatives of member institutions of the ADPCCJ who have completed the annual survey each year.

Abstract

With more than half of all doctoral programs in criminology and criminal justice admitting their first doctoral student after 1990, growth in doctoral education in criminology and criminal justice in recent years has been substantial. Using seven years of data from annual surveys of all institutions known to offer the doctorate in criminology and criminal justice, we document and explore the contours of that growth in doctoral education in criminology and criminal justice. To the extent that growth in doctoral education is indicative of the emergence of a distinct discipline, the expansion documented in this article suggests that criminology/criminal justice is well on its way to establishing itself as such. Profiles of newly admitted students, enrolled students, and graduate faculties, are provided.

* An early version of this article was presented by the first author at the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences Annual Meeting, Baltimore, MD, in March 2006. The authors would like to thank the representatives of member institutions of the ADPCCJ who have completed the annual survey each year.

Notes

* An early version of this article was presented by the first author at the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences Annual Meeting, Baltimore, MD, in March 2006. The authors would like to thank the representatives of member institutions of the ADPCCJ who have completed the annual survey each year.

1. In AY 2003–2004, the doctoral programs responding to the annual survey graduated 103 doctoral students; however, in AY 2004–2005, that number fell slightly to 89 graduates.

2. The authors would like to acknowledge Ronald Huff for alerting us to this achievement.

3. The original data from the 1998–1999 annual survey are not available for analysis.

4. Responses rates per year were as follows: AY 1999–2000 (60%); AY 2000–2001 (73%); AY 2001–2002 (71%); AY 2002–2003 (86%); AY 2003–2004 (79%); AY 2004–2005 (94%); AY 2005–2006 (88%).

5. As noted above, four programs did not complete the 2005–2006 annual survey and two programs that did complete the survey did not provide data on gender and race/ethnicity of its master’s/doctoral students. The demographic data presented here are therefore derived from data for 26 of the 32 active doctoral programs.

6. The City University of New York’s doctoral program, although housed at John Jay College of Criminal Justice (which operates a number of criminal justice master’s programs), is organizationally a program of the Graduate School and University Center (all CUNY Ph.D. programs are organizationally centralized at the Graduate School).

7. CUNY’s doctoral program draws its faculty from the criminal justice faculty at John Jay College and faculty at other CUNY campuses. The program therefore has in excess of 50 doctoral faculty members and has been excluded from the analyses.

8. The Norcross et al. (2005) article tracks growth in psychology over time (from 1971 to 2004). Here we rely on their AY 2003–2004 analysis. The criminology and criminal justice data presented are derived from the AY 2005–2006 survey.

9. For the purpose of the comparisons in Table 7, we used Norcross et al.’s (2005) data across all programs.

10. Here, the enrollment rate is calculated as the number of students enrolling divided by the number of applicants.