Justice Studies - Department of Chemistry - San Jose State University

JS 107—Justice Management was changed to Justice Management and Ethics to include ethicalchallenges and issues, as well as ethical principles that ideally guide the management of justicerelated institutions as a more central component to the course.JS 110—Intervention and Mediation Methods was changed to Crisis Intervention, Mediation andRestorative Justice to include theory, research and skills in communication and problemresolution and to make restorative justice more central to the course.JS 111—Advanced Criminal and Correctional Law was changed to Special Topics in Law andJustice in order to expand the breadth of possible topical issues dealt with in this elective. Theparameters for content in Advanced Criminal and Correctional Law were quite narrow andspecialized, and its new incarnation makes the course more broadly relevant to a wider range ofour students.JS 112—Advanced Criminal Investigation was changed to Criminalistics to focus on evidencecollection and preservation rather than investigation more generally, as Criminalistics is arequired part of the Forensic Science degree programs (although JS 112 is also an elective for JSmajors).JS 115—Contemporary Issues in Criminal Justice was changed to Critical Ideas and Issues inJustice. It was also changed from an elective to a required course. JS 115 is now a required“gateway” course for upper-division majors. It introduces students to various conceptions ofjustice (moral, social, political, etc.), exposes them to situations of injustice around the world,both historical and present-day, and asks them to consider policies and practices that promote ordetract from justice. The course thus creates an intellectual context for students’ considerationsof justice in other department courses. It also integrates a series of activities that are designed tomake the connections between justice as a theoretical concept and justice in practice. Courseactivities are coordinated by undergraduate peer mentors who work with the JS 115 students insmaller groups.JS 117—Questioned Documents Examination was eliminated as dated and not relevant to mostmajors. Document examination is essentially a vocational skill for a small segment of justiceprofessionals, who are trained in these specialized techniques by their agencies.JS 118—Nature of Crime was changed to Crime and Delinquency Theory to emphasize thecourse focus on theories of crime rather than descriptive materials.JS 122—Narcotics and Drug Abuse was changed to Drugs and Society to move the class fromprimarily a pharmacology or public health perspective to one that centrally considers the societalimplications of and responses to drug use. The course now includes historical perspectives ondrug laws, theoretical perspectives on use and abuse, international comparisons of drug policy,and the economic and foreign-policy implications of drug trafficking.JS 132—Women, Minorities and the Law was changed to Race, Gender, Inequality and the Lawto indicate more clearly the course focus on inequality in all its forms, and the consideration ofboth genders and all races.7