PSA - Public Safety

Designed to reinforce officer’s knowledge and understanding of all facets of criminal justice system, sub-systems and how they interrelate (police, defense and prosecuting attorneys, courts, institutional corrections, community-based corrections, and the juvenile justice system.) Emphasis on criminal justice system as a whole and necessity that its elements be integrated. Roles and interrelationships of local, county, state, and federal law enforcement agencies also examined.

Provides public safety leaders with the knowledge, skills, and tools for effective leadership within their chosen fields, with a focus on the Servant Leadership model and demonstrating how serving first and leading second, evolves seamlessly.

Examines ethics from a public safety profession perspective, including the application of ethical theories to those professions.  Academic themes include public safety prudence, recuperative and restorative justice, legal applications and procedures, sentencing, research, community crime control policies.

Examines legal theory behind individual rights and their practices and systems application as connected to the public safety profession. Examines the U.S. constitution as it relates to the public safety function, including statutory law and judicial decisions governing the areas of arrest, search and seizure, interrogations and confessions, self-incrimination, and other constitutional guarantees.

Develops an understanding of the observable symptoms in common types of mental illness and associated criminal behavior. Explores proper techniques for handling and transporting people who are mentally disturbed and the legal procedures for both emergency and routine mental illness related cases. Examines the risk factors and warning signs to effectively respond to individuals experiencing mental illness trauma events.

Examines public safety administration and organizational problem solving, including the concept that leaders must become skilled in navigating the “change process” which drives organizational vision and assists in its ability to be implemented within the culture of an organization. Explores topics of employee engagement, resistance to change, and strategies for effective leadership.

Examines first-line supervision, with a progression to mid-level and executive-level leadership, focusing on leadership principles and theories. Applies popular governance and leadership theories to current issues in the public safety field, such as homeland security, crisis leadership, implementing technology innovations, police ethics, and integrity.

Examines prejudice, discrimination, systems and structures of oppression and effects on public safety in a changing society. Analyzes significance of race, class, and ethnicity to crime perpetration and criminal justice processing, role of racism in treatment of minorities by various components of criminal justice system, evolving public policy resulting from increases in immigration and impact on public safety professions. Examines hate crimes, laws enacted to combat, and multi-disciplinary approaches to community relations.

Examines the importance of acquiring proficient knowledge of and utilization of effective communication skills while working within the public safety profession. Includes a combination of instructional and interactive learning techniques designed to enhance students’ knowledge and understanding of the importance of communication. Students will learn active listening methods as well as diverse measures of effective communication.

Focuses particularly on police response to the community, recognizing that delivery of police services is much more than law enforcement. Stresses the skills of communication, intervention, negotiation and mediation. Ties directly to the expectation that police maintain order and engage in conflict resolution. Includes dynamics of human relationships and understanding various cultural differences that affect policing. Provides overview of origins, meaning and development of community policing programs. Use role-playing and case studies to enhance learning experience.

Examines the concept of victimology and provides information on the fears, emotional distress, physical suffering, and financial loss suffered by victims and witnesses of crime. Explores victimization, including relations between victims and offenders, interactions between victims and the criminal justice system, that is, the Public Safety profession, courts, and corrections officials, and the connections between victims and other social groups and institutions, such as the media, businesses, and social movements.

Examines the larger human resources functions of recruitment, hiring, retention, and training for the public safety agency sector, including the intersection of planning, budgeting, personnel, external and internal pressures, and performance expectations of a public safety agency. Focuses on larger human relations planning processes within the context of the general movement to “reform” public safety agencies and improve performance in an effort to serve communities more effectively and enhance the public good.

Capstone course that guides student in the integration of functional content areas in the field of public safety. Addresses public safety issues and applying public safety theories and techniques to problems and cases through a process of decision-making that demonstrates achievement of the learning outcomes. Prerequisite: Completion of all required courses in the major or permission of advisor.