Oct 10, 2024  
2024-2025 Undergraduate Bulletin 
    
2024-2025 Undergraduate Bulletin

Criminology, BA Major in


Administered by the Department of Sociology   

Program Description


Criminology is an exciting, multidisciplinary field that studies the creation, causes, and consequences of crime, as well as the institutions designed to address it. Hofstra’s Criminology Program offers an undergraduate major and minor, and it is structured to provide students with a broad-based liberal arts education that draws from a variety of disciplines, including forensics, linguistics, philosophy, political science, psychology, and sociology.

Hofstra’s Criminology curriculum centers on rigorous analytic and methodological skills that are rooted in the social scientific method. Our approach leads to a critical understanding of crime, its social and psychological context, and its relation to other social institutions, including but not limited to the criminal justice system.

Students with a criminology degree are prepared to begin careers in law, government, and nongovernmental agencies that deal with diverse issues in criminal justice, such as mass incarceration, rehabilitation and re-entry, firearms policy, human rights, community empowerment, and equitable and restorative justice. The program is also a superior foundation for graduate studies in numerous related fields.

Program Requirements


The major in criminology requires the successful completion of a minimum of 32 s.h. of course work, including:

1) Required Courses - Semester Hours: 20


2) Three s.h. in each of the following categories - Total Semester Hours: 6


3) Electives, chosen under advisement - Total Semester Hours: 9


In addition to the following, courses taken from among those listed under categories I and II above that are beyond the required minimum of 3 s.h. will count as electives.

Footnotes


* Credit toward the major or minor is given for one of these courses, not both.

** When topic approved by the director of the criminology program.

Complete BA Requirements


BA Requirements  in HCLAS.

Recommended Program Sequence - Total Hours: 124