Explore Our Criminal Justice Programs
The School of Criminal Justice and Criminology (SCJC) at UA Little Rock is Arkansas’s flagship program in its discipline. Across all degree programs, the School provides students with the intellectual and practical skills that they need to become successful and socially responsible professionals. Our programs are led by outstanding scholars who approach the study of crime and justice with a unique blend of research and practice.
Our faculty and student work and learrn together to:
– Improve the criminal justice system
– Address and solve pressing issues related to crime
– Develop cutting-edge research and theory
– Prepare the next generation of criminal justice professionals
Contact our Undergraduate Advisor, Justin Williams (501-916-6638 or jrwilliams10@ualr.edu), with questions about the Associate of Science in Law Enforcement or Bachelor of Arts in Criminal Justice programs.
Contact our Graduate Coordinator, Dr. Richard Lewis (501-916-6634 or rhlewis@ualr.edu), with questions about our Master of Science, Master of Arts, or Doctorate of Philosophy programs.
Request More InformationMajors and Programs
School Highlights
Read about the research that our faculty and students are engaged in, along with their work in the community.
Research in the Rock
Congratulations to Dr. Tusty ten Bensel and Dr. Robert (Bob) Lytle on their recent National Science Foundation (NSF) grant award. Through this grant, they will examine the context and incidence of anti-Muslim sentiment, ranging from prejudice to hate crimes, through a combination of interviews and surveys over the next three years. This study will specifically focus on the perceptions of Muslims in Arkansas who have been the target of discrimination, harassment, or interpersonal crime, along with the impacts such behaviors have on victims. In addition, this grant also includes funding for 30 undergraduate students to participate in the design, implementation, analysis and reporting of this project. Students who are interested in criminal justice and graduate education will be selected from a nationwide pool of applicants to work with various SCJC faculty members on this project over eight summer weeks.
The Arkansas Department of Corrections awarded faculty at the School of Criminal Justice and Criminology a multi-year contract ($453,000) to examine prison culture and climate. This project is being led by Dr. Mary Parker who has worked with the Arkansas Department of Corrections for over 20+ years. Dr. Parker is joined by Drs. Robert Lytle and Molly Smith. To describe the study, Dr. Parker said that “we are one of the few large-scale projects that include visitors and volunteers,” Parker said. “Families are a critical dynamic to incarceration and adding their perspective to the study gives us invaluable information on the impact of incarceration on friends and families of those incarcerated. Most people do not realize it but hundreds of volunteers work in prison providing religious programming, therapy groups, dog training, meditation, etc. for the inmate population. We will be surveying a sample of this population to gain their perspectives on what we can do better in our individual prison to improve multiple dynamics of the culture in prison.”