| INSTRUCTOR: Bruce Mork | Office: Cina 205 |
| Office hours: Tu/Th, 9.30-11.00 | |
| Phone: (218) 726-8451 | E-mail: bmork@d.umn.edu |
Timing of Lessons: You must submit an exercise or exam each week of the semester in order to finish the course on time. A late exercise will receive a maximum of 5/10 and a late exam will get a maximum of 50/100. You may certainly work ahead, and in fact, you can even complete the first two lessons and exercises before the course begins, because those two lessons are not password protected.
Text: Steven Barkan, Criminology: A Sociological Understanding,4th edition (Be sure to look for Criminology 1301: Section 350, in the UMD bookstore) (DON'T GET THE FIFTH EDITION; IT'S MORE EXPENSIVE AND THE PAGES IN MY LESSONS AND EXERCISES WON'T LINE UP)
Videos: This course will use many films, available online from Frontline as streaming video. Let me know if you run
into any difficulties in getting access to these videos. .
Liberal Education Program: This course meets the requirements for Category
8: Contemporary Social Issues and Analysis in UMD's Liberal Education Program.
Course Description:
This is a course that introduces the strategies sociologists and criminologists use to study the causes and effects of crime, as well as the way those causes and effects interact with trends in the criminal justice system. It meets Category 8 of the liberal education program and is also required for criminology majors. Other requirements of being admitted to the Criminology major are linked to the Sociology/Anthropology home page under "Criminology" and then "Major." )
Course Objectives: By the end of this course, you should be able:
1. Know three ways in which criminologists measure crime, including the strengths and weaknesses of each method.
2. Be able to identify the major patterns and varieties of crime in the United States, including current trends and limited cross-cultural comparisons.
3. Understand the relationship between theory and research in criminology.
4. Be able to define the key concepts that criminologists use in understanding crime and constructing theories.
5. Be able to describe the development, as well as the strengths and weaknesses, of various sociological theories of crime.
6. Be able to identify the unique features of the American criminal justice system, along with the strengths and weaknesses of our police, courts, and corrections systems.
7. Understand the relationship between the criminal justice system and minority communities in the United States.
8. Know how criminologists study the criminal justice system and evaluate its results.
9. Understand how the needs of the mass media and the political system affect popular understandings of the criminal justice system.
10. Re-evaluate your own perspective on crime and criminal justice, in relation to what you have learned in the course, including your priorities about resource allocation in the criminal justice system.
Grading: Your grade will be based on the exercises linked to each lesson (12 in all) , as well as three exams, each covering about 1/3 of the course and worth 100 points each.
| Exam One | 100 points |
| Exam Two | 100 points |
| Exam Three | 100 points |
| Moodle discussions | 50 points |
| Instructor's Exercises | 120 points |
Grades will be calculated based on the percentage of total points, as follows: A, 93-100; A-, 90-92; B+, 87-89; B, 83-87; B-, 80-82; C+, 77-79; C, 73-77; C-, 70-72; D, 60-69; F, below 60.
Moodle Discussion forum: Here's the link (and you'll notice that there's also a link on the course index page): https://moodle.umn.edu/course/
Beginning by week two, you need to post in 10 different weeks(only your best post for a given week will count in your scores). I'll be keeping an eye on these discussions, perhaps sometimes with a comment of my own, but I won't give any scores until after the fifth week, the tenth week, and at the end.
Incompletes: The only incompletes will be for people with true emergencies who were up-to-date in the course until the emergency occurred.
Extra Credit: Extra credit is not available in this online class. This recognizes the fact that with open-book exams and other exercises, your academic destiny is already in your own hands, and rather than put time into extra credit, I'd rather just see you doing the best possible job with course materials.
Students with disabilities:
It is the policy and practice of the University of Minnesota Duluth to create inclusive learning environments for all students, including students with disabilities. If there are aspects of this course that result in barriers to your inclusion or your ability to meet course requirements – such as time limited exams, inaccessible web content, or the use of non-captioned videos – please notify the instructor as soon as possible. You are also encouraged to contact the Office of Disability Resources to discuss and arrange reasonable accommodations. Please call 218-726-6130 or visit the DR website at www.d.umn.edu/access for more information.
Academic Honesty: Honesty is one of the central values of academic life, and there is an extra element of trust inherent in the structure of this kind of an on-line course. It's okay (and indeed, expected) that you draw on the text, on my lesson comments and on the readings, as you carry out the coursework, including the exams. But be sure you give credit where credit is due. Whenever your ideas or your phrasing comes from somebody else's work, credit that person appropriately. Here is a link to a more general discussion of plagiarism. In instances of academic dishonesty, your grade will be reduced, up to and including an F for the course. Copying someone else's exercise or test or allowing your exercises or tests to be copied is a very serious offense against academic honesty and will result in an F for the course.