Ph.D. in
Criminal Justice
We consider an application only after all of the relevant information is on hand. Be sure to complete your on-line application for admission from the Graduate School also. Please complete the following to facilitate our admission process:
- A form, "Reviewer Comments to Supplement Application for Admission," from 3 professors or others who are qualified to speak to your academic activities and potential.
- A brief (one-page) statement, outlining your career objectives and areas of interest in political science or criminal justice.
- An official copy of your GRE scores sent to our department.
In order for your application to be considered for admission, all application materials, including recommendation forms and official GRE scores, must be sent to the Department of Political Science/Criminal Justice Program by January 10 for fall admission. Spring admissions will be considered on a case-by-case basis; contact the department for more information. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any further questions.
The successful master’s candidate will be able to step into a variety of administrative, teaching, or research positions.
Admission Information
To be eligible for admission to regular student status, the student must:
- have at least a B (3.00 on a 4.00 scale) grade point average in the last 60 hours of the student's graded undergraduate work, from an accredited college or university
OR
at least 12 semester hours of approved course work from recognized graduate schools with at least a B grade point average;
- submit an official copy of Graduate Record Examination (GRE) scores (verbal and quantitative);
- submit a form, "Reviewer Comments to Supplement Application for Admission," from 3 academic referees or others who are qualified to speak to the student's academic activities and potential;
- submit a brief (1- to 2-page) statement, outlining areas of interest in criminal justice and the student's career objectives.
Criminal justice required core courses (22 credits)
- CrmJ 530– Criminal Justice: Process and Institutions
- CrmJ 540/PS 541– Seminar in Research Evaluation
- PS 503– Seminar in Research Methods
- PS 504– Quantitative Methods in Political Science and Criminal Justice
- XXXX– Seminar in Advanced Statistics (variety of courses already offered throughout the university)
- PS 514/PS 540– Seminar in Public Policy or Public Administration
- Soc 560– Problems of Deviance Theory (we currently require that our graduate students take a class in this subject area, and this has been a longstanding arrangement with the Department of Sociology)
- CrmJ 539: Professionalization Seminar (1 credit)
Plus 3 courses from the following electives to constitute your sub-field in CJ (9 credits):
- CrmJ 505– Comparative Criminal Justice Systems
- CrmJ 541– Seminar in Corrections
- CrmJ 570– The Police and Society
- CrmJ 572– Seminar in Comparative Policing
- CrmJ 580– Women and Criminal Justice
- CrmJ 591– Seminar in the Administration of Criminal Justice
- CrmJ 592– Pro-seminar in Administration, Justice, and Applied Policy Studies
- PS 516– Seminar in Law and Courts
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Plus the core courses from one exam field other than criminal justice. The courses for each of the following exam fields already exist and are based on long standing arrangements with the other departments listed (18 credits):
- Comparative Politics (courses available within PolS)
- Criminological Theory (courses available within CrmJ and Soc)
- Gender, Justice and Politics (courses available within CJ, PolS, and WmSt)
- Political Psychology (courses available within PolS and Psych)
- Public Law (courses available in PolS)
- Public Policy Studies (courses available in PolS)
- Public Administration (courses available in PolS)
- Statistics and Methods (courses available within CrmJ, PolS, Soc and Psych)
- Independent Exam Field designed by committee
Students must complete 48 graded credits and 20 credits of 800 level to complete the Ph.D.
17 credits may be transferred in from another Master’s Degree Program.
27 credits may transfer in from our own CJ Master’s Degree Program.
PRELIMINARY EXAMINATION REQUIREMENTS
The Ph.D. aspirant becomes eligible to attempt qualifying ("preliminary") examinations when he or she is in the process of completing the final courses included in his or her Ph.D. program. Only after a student has successfully passed "prelims" does he or she become formally a "candidate for the Ph.D. (or ABD, "All But Dissertation")". Preliminary exam schedules are established by the committee and the student and must be formally filed with the graduate school after all members of the committee sign-off.
Each student will have up to eight hours to complete each of the three examinations. At least one of the examinations will be in the student's Course Field. The order of these examinations is up to the student and her/his committee. For the examination, the student will be assigned a private office. If the student wishes to complete the examination using word processing software, the appropriate hardware will be provided. The student will not be allowed to bring any other software in to the examination room. If the student's committee agrees, the student will be allowed to take the prelim as an open-note exam.
Graders of the examination are required to submit an evaluation to the chair of the student's committee. At the committee's option, faculty may give oral or written feedback to the student before the oral exam. The oral exam is normally held within two weeks of completion of the writtens. The exam lasts two hours and the examiners include the student's examination committee as well as a representative from the Graduate School. Questions normally focus on the student's written examination but can cover any topic within the student's areas of concentration.
The object of the qualifying examination, which is comprehensive and broad in nature, and both written and oral, is to test the student's mastery of and sophistication concerning his/her fields of specialization in Political Science. It is not designed to reward mere memorization of facts. The student should bear in mind that when a student "sits" for prelims he or she is seeking to be recognized as a peer of the examiners.
There is no "set" or "magic" way to prepare for prelims. A solid course background is, of course, an indispensable asset. The successful student will also have read substantially beyond course requirements in his or her major and minor fields, will have consulted faculty teaching in these fields regarding appropriate reading lists and preparation strategies, and will be thoroughly informed regarding relevant methodology.
The maximum period of time in which to complete both written and oral examinations is 30 days (Graduate School regulation). Under existing University policy, students cannot take any such examinations (prelim or final) unless they are registered for credit and have paid the fees entailed by such registration for the school term in which the examination is scheduled.
At the option of the committee, a student who fails their preliminary exams may be allowed to re-take the exams once, after a three month waiting period.
DISSERTATION PROSPECTUS DEFENSE
The next requirement for the Ph.D. candidate beyond the prelims is preparation, under the guidance of a thesis committee, of a dissertation presenting the results of a thorough and systematic investigation of a significant problem related to one of the exam fields of the candidate. The thesis committee will normally be composed of the chairperson and two other members of the Graduate Faculty. The subject matter of the dissertation will, of course, have an important bearing on the committee's composition.
Students must present, and orally defend, a dissertation prospectus, usually in the semester following successful passage of the preliminary exams. This defense does not need to be scheduled with the Graduate School. The objectives of the proposal are to identify the research topic, and to demonstrate that a feasible and appropriate research strategy has been developed.
For students doing a M.A. in Criminal Justice at WSU and who are planning on applying to the Ph.D. program, the M.A. essay will be a preliminary version of this prospectus. These students will schedule a regular defense with the Graduate School. It is not expected that M.A. students will have a completely developed dissertation prospectus for this defense. At the same time, producing a preliminary version of the dissertation prospectus shows that the student has the skills to design a complex research project and give the student a head-start on the dissertation. Students who have successfully defended their M.A. essay/Preliminary Dissertation Prospectus will not be required to formally defend the final dissertation prospectus after their prelims. Individual committees may ask the student to defend an updated version.
Normally, the student works with the chair of her/his committee to produce a final draft. Only after the chair has approved the working draft may the student submit the essay to the other members of the committee, remembering that the other members must have the essay at least 15 work days prior to the defense date. All committee members must sign-off on the defense date. If these guidelines are not respected by the student, the other members of the committee are not obliged to attend the defense.
A dissertation prospectus should be a clear statement and presentation of the research problem to be examined after prelims. The prospectus presents the student's preliminary work on the problem, not just a statement of that problem, as well as a discussion of the feasibility and significance of the project. The prospectus should be approximately 50 pages and should include (not necessarily in this precise format or order):
- Project Title.
- Statement of the Topic or Problem: Identify the specific focus in researchable terms and place the topic or problem in the literature.
- Extensive Literature Review: Describe and critique major approaches to the problem, the relevant findings, theoretical and methodological debates in the literature, and a discussion of how the dissertation will fit in and add to the literature.
- Tentative Theoretical Framework: Describe the theoretical framework with which the problem or topic will be analyzed. This may require an additional literature review if the approach has not been used to examine the problem or topic.
- Tentative Hypotheses.
- Approach, Methods and Materials: Discuss in depth the analytical school or approach or methodology that will be employed.
- Tentative Chapter by Chapter Outline.
The prospectus must be submitted to the student's committee, revised in accordance with committee criticisms, and acceptable to the committee before the final oral exam is scheduled. Further revisions may be required after the successful completion of the oral exam.
FINAL ORAL EXAMINATION OF DISSERTATION
The last requirement is the final oral examination, which under existing Graduate School policies cannot be scheduled until the dissertation is ready for presentation to the Graduate School and for deposit in the University library. The final oral usually centers on the dissertation, but, as Graduate School regulations indicate, the student must be prepared to meet questions relating to any of the work he or she has done for the degree.
Under existing University policy, students cannot take any such examinations (preliminary or final) unless they are registered for credit and have paid the fees entailed by such registration for the school term in which the examination is scheduled. Normally such examinations can be scheduled only for times when the University is in session. "A minimum of four months must elapse between the successful completion of a preliminary examination and the scheduling of a final examination (Graduate School Policies and Procedures Manual, at http://www.gradsch.wsu.edu/policiesprocedures.html
Current Graduate School regulations stipulate that "In all cases, the requirements for the degree should be completed within three years of the date of the satisfactory completion of the preliminary examination." Upon completion of the dissertation, a final bound copy must be submitted to the Graduate School and the Department of Political Science conforming to Graduate School requirements as follows:
Following a passed oral examination, the 100% rag bond manuscript and one copy of the thesis or dissertation must be signed in black ink by all committee members and the manuscript returned to the Graduate School within 5 working days for final acceptance. Specific steps for final acceptance are given to graduate students at the time they receive the Thesis Acceptance/Final Examination scheduling form. (Graduate School Policies and Procedures Manual, at http://www.gradsch.wsu.edu/policiesprocedures.html.)
Students need to be in regular contact with their committee chair with regards their completion schedule for the dissertation. Students cannot expect committees to suddenly schedule a defense if they produce the entire manuscript unexpectedly. The student should have an agreed upon completion schedule with the Chair and should be submitting chapters regularly. The other committee members must be given ample time (at least 15 working days ) to read over the final version, only after the chair has approved the dissertation. Please remember, that this process takes time. Be aware that all committee members must sign-off on a defense date.
TEACHING AND/OR RESEARCH REQUIREMENT
In addition to the course requirements, each student in the Ph.D. program is required to have formal teaching and/or research experience in an institution of higher learning before receiving the Ph.D. degree. Serving as a Teaching Assistant in the Political Science Department/Criminal Justice Program satisfies this teaching requirement. Collecting original data also fulfills this requirement. |
