Alumni Research and Criminal Justice

Abstract

Alumni studies use past graduates of educational programs or institutions to address various types of research aims. While alumni research is common in disciplines such as business, psychology, nursing, and social work, few criminal justice alumni studies have been published in the academic literature. This article reviews the types of alumni studies that are typically conducted, discusses reasons for conducting criminal justice alumni surveys, considers barriers to these surveys, identifies criminal justice‐specific themes that address why alumni studies are rare in the discipline, and suggests strategies for enhancing and expanding this sort of research in the discipline.