NCJ Number
174730
Journal
Journal of Criminal Justice Education Volume: 8 Issue: 2 Dated: Fall 1997 Pages: 225-241
Date Published
1997
Length
17 pages
Annotation
Internships are considered an essential component of many criminal justice programs because they serve an important bridging experience between student academic careers and their careers as criminal justice professionals.
Abstract
The authors examine several pedagogical and curriculum issues related to the use of a required internship in a criminal justice program. Special emphasis is placed on incorporating an internship seminar as part of the internship requirement and on advantages and challenges such a seminar may provide. While the authors strongly support the educational objective of the criminal justice internship, to integrate student classroom knowledge and the knowledge they gain at internship sites, they believe this ideal is often difficult to realize. Even when an internship course is designed to achieve this integration, students sometimes resist the task of critically analyzing their experiences or find themselves unable to do so. Consequently, criminal justice educators should develop pedagogical strategies that will enable students to reach the objective of integration. An appendix lists course objectives and projects for a criminal justice internship. 9 references and 1 footnote