The State of Diversity in Criminal Justice Higher Education: An Analysis of Curricula in Criminal Justice Bachelor's Degree Programs

The study examines diversity-themed course offerings in criminal justice and criminology (CJC) bachelor's degree programs in the United States in 2020-21. Using a sample of 359 CJC programs, we document the presence of diversity-themed courses and degree requirements using data collected from university websites. We explore patterns of diversity-themed courses by department and institutional characteristics and assess the current state of diversity curricula in the discipline of criminal justice and criminology. Results of our analysis reveal that a substantial majority (75 percent) of CJC programs possessed at least one diversity-themed course while only 12 percent required students to complete a diversity-themed course in the major. We consider what these and related findings mean for the discipline in light of previous research and discuss the importance of developing student competencies in racial, gender, and other dimensions of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the contemporary context of American criminal justice.