A Sample Job Posting for an Academic Criminology Position

Today on the Job Board for Inside Higher Education, I found a posting for a Criminology professor. I decided to make a post on the blog about it because I think it nicely illustrates one type of position that might come from an advanced degree in criminology or criminal justice, and gives a good example of real educational requirements you might run into.

The job is Assistant Professor in Criminology at Eastern Michigan University. It’s a tenure track position, “with a focus on juvenile justice.” Here are the qualifications it gives:

Ph.D. in Sociology, Criminal Justice or a related discipline; advanced ABDs may be considered, JDs without an accompanying Ph.D. will not.

So you can see that the position requires a PhD, but it does not give a particular program that applicants need to have completed. While some universities may have a College of Criminology with a PhD program, there is still a complicated relationship between criminology, sociology, and criminal justice.

You can see here that the first program listed is sociology, but no doubt with a focus on juvenile criminology. The fact that a J.D. without a Ph.D. will not be considered helps underscore some of the differences between criminology and criminal justice. (As well as general requirements for most faculty positions: a PhD.) The search committee is looking for someone with a sociological background and an in-depth knowledge of social structures and social process theories relating to juvenile crime; not just an expert in the penal system, law or corrections.

Other duties of this position include “creat(ing) an undergraduate class in juvenile justice, (and) adopt(ing) leadership in developing a concentration in juvenile justice-juvenile delinquency within the CRM major.”

If you’re interested in reading the original job post, you can do so here.