THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, November 27, 1994 TAG: 9411270058
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PHILIP WALZER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 125 lines
Students are flocking to study Crime and Punishment on campus.
No, not the classic Russian novel, but real-life issues of law and order, search and seizure, guilt and innocence.
Criminal-justice programs are booming at colleges across the state.
``If we had more faculty, we'd have (even) more students in criminal justice,'' said Leonard E. Dobrin, an associate professor at Old Dominion University, where 72 students received bachelor's degrees in the field last spring. ``The numbers are artificially deflated by our physical limits.''
At Virginia Commonwealth University, the number of graduates has grown by nearly 74 percent in the past five years, from 65 in 1989 to 113 this year. The program is now the fifth most popular at the school, chairman William Pelfrey said.
At Radford University, the number of students majoring in the field has jumped 68 percent in the last five years, to 610 this fall.
Joe Arnstein, a 21-year-old junior from Fairfax, changed his major from English to criminal justice at Old Dominion. ``I want to go to law school, and I figured I would get a lot more out of this,'' he said.
Besides, ``it allows me to be a free thinker. In English, they pretty much told you what the stories are about.''
Meegan Huffman, another junior, also switched.
``I was taking business courses because I thought they would be more usable in the real world,'' said Huffman, a 21-year-old from Northern Virginia. ``But I'm more interested in criminal justice; there's more I can relate to.''
Professors say the surge in enrollment reflects the public's insatiable interest in crime - and the media's relentless focus.
Just open the paper or turn on the TV: There's Heidi Fliess and prostitution. O.J. Simpson and spousal abuse. Susan Smith and child murders.
``It's a fascinating topic,'' said John H. Gray, director of the administration of justice program at Tidewater Community College, which has 40 graduates a year. ``People are very interested in crime. All the polls show it's the No. 1 issue of the American public.''
He added: ``You certainly don't lack for things in the field to read about. Every newspaper is chock full of stuff.''
Cop shows like ``NYPD Blue'' don't hurt, either.
In them, ``you see people who are active; they're doing something,'' said Paul Lang, chairman of the criminal justice program at Radford. ``It's not a desk job.'' The shows, Lang said, generate ``a certain excitement associated with criminal justice.'' Of course, he added, ``I personally don't play on this'' aspect.
Just as important, students see plenty of job opportunities after graduation. ``Police work is a very well-paying public service job,'' said Gray, who estimates that the starting salaries for officers in the region are $20,000 to $23,000.
And plenty more jobs are coming. The national crime bill President Clinton signed this year is expected to allow cities to hire an additional 20,000 to 100,000 police officers. And in Virginia, the Allen administration predicts that its prison-construction plan will create more than 7,300 jobs.
Dobrin, though, winces at the notion that criminal-justice courses are simply training programs for police officers or prison guards.
``When I tell people I teach criminal justice,'' he said, ``the immediate response is: `Oh, you train police.' No, I don't. . . . I think the police academy does an absolutely fine job of teaching them to be police officers, and it's none of our business.''
Said Lang of Radford: ``People think they're learning Firearms 101 or Arrests 203. That's the farthest thing from the truth. We're trying to educate students to be well-rounded, intelligent, problem-solving people to work in every aspect of the criminal justice system.''
Some students, like Arnstein, use the major as a solid grounding for graduate school. Others, like Huffman, are thinking about becoming federal investigators. They might also become statistical analysts, private security managers, probation officers.
Unlike many other subjects, Lang said, criminal justice neatly blends the theoretical and the practical.
At VCU, for instance, students take courses such as criminology, which reviews the biological, psychological and economic motivation for crime; and criminal law, which goes over the nitty-gritty legal definitions of terms such as burglary (``breaking and entering with the intent to commit a felony'') and nighttime (the period starting 30 minutes after nightfall and ending 30 minutes before sunrise).
ODU's courses include juvenile delinquency, women and crime, and correctional institutions. In Donald H. Smith's class on the criminal justice system recently, the topic was house arrest.
Smith, an associate professor of sociology and criminal justice, said house arrest should be the punishment for people convicted of white-collar crime and minor alcohol-related offenses. ``If we did that, we'd probably have more room for violent offenders'' in prison, he said.
According to a National Institute of Justice film he showed in class, house arrest costs $3 per day per person, one-tenth the cost of prison.
But Arnstein, the Fairfax junior, said afterward that he considered the concept ``debatable. . . . Some of the things we see here seem to have pretty radical ideas.''
Despite the depressing and seemingly intractable problems they study, the students still retain their spark of idealism, said Gray of TCC. ``An awful lot of students get into this field because they want to make a difference. They're community-minded, and they feel that in some small part, they can contribute to a more stable society.''
Arnstein, who's not sure what type of law he will pursue, counts himself as one of them. ``A lot of people talk about crime in the United States. We want to do something about it. People who are interested in making things better will sign up for this.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color graphic with photos
SOME REASONS WHY:
The media's focus on crime:
Coverage of the Susan Smith child case and the O.J. Simpson trial
has been extensive. It's a fascinating topic, says John H. Gray at
Tidewater Community College.
Cop shows on TV:
Programs like NYPD Blue can generate excitement in criminal
justice.
You see people who are active; they're doing something, says Paul
Land of Radford University.
Job availability:
Salaries in the region start
at $20,000 to $23,000, and more jobs are expected.
Police work is a very well-paying public service job, says Gray
of TCC.
KEYWORDS: CRIMINAL JUSTICE COLLEGE COURSE by CNB