Forensic Services Certificate
Courses
The 16-credit certificate comprises five 3-credit courses and a 1-credit field experience. The six courses are offered on a rotating basis during the fall, spring, and summer. Participants register through the Division of Corporate, Continuing and Distance Education.
Summer 2009
- PSYCH614 Forensic Psychology
3 Lect Hrs, 3 Units
This course examines the intersection of criminal law and clinical psychology. Topics include those that are frequently the concern of forensic mental health clinicians, namely recidivism, violence risk assessment, insanity, legal competence, and false memory. These topics are studied from cultural and developmental (childhood, adolescence, adult) perspectives.
- SOCIOL623 Alcohol, Drugs & Crime (online)
3 Lect Hrs, 3 Units
This course focuses on the multifaceted associations among alcohol, drug use, and crime in America. It distinguishes legal and policy issues from competing paradigms and contrasts criminal justice and public health models. State-of-the-art etiology, epidemiology, prevention, and treatment studies correlating criminality and substance misuse are assessed and evaluated in historical and sociocultural contexts. The course highlights social service systems in relation to current practices and institutionalized definitions of health and illness, crime and criminals.
Prerequisite: Graduate standing or permission of instructor.
Fall 2009
- COUNSL604 Foundations of Mental Health Counseling
3 Lect Hrs, 3 Units
The intent of this course is to provide students with basic information on the principles and practices of mental health counseling. Topics include the history and philosophy of mental health counseling, professional identity, the roles of the mental health counselor, professional ethics, managed care, various contexts of practice and organizational structures, mandated clients, crisis intervention services, prevention, consultation, and an understanding of how diversity influences the practice of mental health counseling. Particular attention is given to the practice of mental health counseling in a range of such urban settings as homeless shelters and outpatient centers.
Spring 2010
- SOCIOL598 Field Observations
1 Unit
This course includes site visits and observation time spent in the field at state or social service agencies.
- SOCIOL618 Psychiatric Epidemiology
3 Lect Hrs, 3 Units
This course provides necessary professional skills and help students understand forensic evidence and its use in courts.
- SOCIOL691 Contemporary Issues in Responding to Crime
3 Lect Hrs, 3 Units
This seminar focuses on responses to crime. As individual citizens and as a community, we respond to crime in a variety of ways. The issues covered in this course may therefore include anything from informal responses - such as fear of crime, the reporting of crime to the police, and the organizing of neighborhood watch groups and crime stopper programs - to formal responses, which include police decisions to arrest or handle informally, bail decisions, issues of sentencing, the use of imprisonment, community corrections, parole and probation, and the death penalty. The course emphasizes the social nature of responses to crime and generally focuses on one or a few of these topics each semester.
Prerequisite: Graduate degree student in Applied Sociology.
Summer 2010
- PSYCH614 Forensic Psychology
3 Lect Hrs, 3 Units
This course examines the intersection of criminal law and clinical psychology. Topics include those that are frequently the concern of forensic mental health clinicians, namely recidivism, violence risk assessment, insanity, legal competence, and false memory. These topics are studied from cultural and developmental (childhood, adolescence, adult) perspectives.
