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Courses for Fall 2025

Title Instructor Location Time All taxonomy terms Description Section Description Cross Listings Fulfills Registration Notes Syllabus Syllabus URL Course Syllabus URL
CRIM 1000-401 Criminology Dilara Bural MW 1:45 PM-3:14 PM This introductory course examines the multi-disciplinary science of law-making, law-breaking, and law-enforcing. It reviews theories and data predicting where, when, by whom and against whom crimes happen. It also addresses the prevention of different offense types by different kinds of offenders against different kinds of people. Police, courts, prisons, and other institutions are critically examined as both preventing and causing crime. This course meets the general distribution requirement. SOCI2920401 Society sector (all classes)
CRIM 1200-001 Statistics for the Social Sciences I Maria Cuellar MW 1:45 PM-3:14 PM Statistical techniques and quantitative reasoning are essential tools for properly examing questions in the social sciences. This course introduces students to the concepts of probability, estimation, confidence intervals, and how to use the statistical concepts and methods to answer social science questions. The course will require the use of R, a free, open source statistical analysis program. This course has been approved for the quantitative data analysis requirement (QDA).
CRIM 2015-301 Crime and Media Dilara Bural MW 5:15 PM-6:44 PM This course explores the intricate relationship between media and crime through a multidisciplinary lens. It delves into the foundational principles of journalism and news reporting, examining how news values shape public perceptions of crime. Students will analyze various theoretical frameworks and apply them to understand moral panics, media portrayals of different demographic groups, and the depiction of law enforcement in both fictional and non-fictional contexts. Key topics include the influence of media on public fear and perception of crime, the portrayal of children, women, police, and minority groups, and the comparative analysis of crime news across different countries. The course also investigates the role of media in political discourse and its impact on voter beliefs, as well as media coverage of white-collar crime and anti-corruption efforts. Through critical examination of police, courts, and prisons as depicted in the media, students will gain insights into how these institutions are both represented and scrutinized in public discourse. This course provides a comprehensive understanding of the symbiotic relationship between crime and media, emphasizing critical thinking and analytical skills. By the end of the unit students should be able to 1) Assess the role of news sources and news values in producing crime news, 2) Evaluate crime news in historical context and as a sociocultural product, 3) Analyze and theorize the representation of offenders, victims, and criminal justice agencies in the mass media, 4) Engage with a range of theoretical and conceptual explanations for media renderings of crime and criminal justice, and 5) Evaluate fictional representations of crime and criminal justice by locating them historically, culturally, and socially.
CRIM 2040-301 Forensic Analysis Maria Cuellar MW 10:15 AM-11:44 AM This course discusses the need for stronger scientific foundations in the analysis of forensic evidence from a scientific and a policy perspective. Forensic evidence, such as fingerprints, firearms, and hair, has been analyzed for hundreds of years to inform crime investigations and prosecutions. However, recent advances, especially the use of DNA technology, have revealed that a faulty forensic analyses may have contributed to wrongful convictions. These advances have demonstrated the potential danger of information and testimony derived from imperfect analysis, which can result not just in wrongful convictions but also in errors of impunity. In this course, students learn about the history of forensics, as well as about the recent advances that aim to improve current practices. It is an interdisciplinary course, but it focuses mostly on the statistical and scientific aspects of testing in forensics. Students discuss recent solutions that quantify the uncertainty, limitations, and errors associated with human factors, pattern evidence, and digital evidence. No prior statistical or forensic knowledge is expected. The course will be useful for students who wish to become forensic practitioners, law enforcement officers, lawyers, judges, researchers, or simply informed citizens.
CRIM 2060-301 Crime and Human Development John M Macdonald TR 10:15 AM-11:44 AM One of the central research problems in criminology is the relationship between human development and the likelihood of committing crime. This course will examine the tools for measuring the onset of crime, its persistence, intermittency, and desistence. These tools include the study of birth cohorts of everyone born in a certain time and place, life course studies of juvenile delinquents and non-delinquents, trajectory analysis of people studied from pre-school through middle age, and interviews with 70 year old former delinquents who reflect on how their life-course affected the crimes they committed. This course will also examine the research findings that have been produced using these tools. Students will be asked to consider what these findings imply for major theories of crime causation as well as policies for crime prevention.
CRIM 2090-301 Wrongful Convictions Charles E Loeffler T 1:45 PM-4:44 PM This course explores wrongful convictions from an interdisciplinary perspective. Using research from the disciplines of law, criminology, psychology and sociology, this course explores how legal errors occur and how they might be prevented in the future. Connections to quality control research and practice in other industries will also be examined. No prerequisites are required.
CRIM 4000-301 Research Seminar in Experiments in Crime and Justice Aurelie Ouss W 12:00 PM-2:59 PM This seminar focuses on examining data from experiments in criminology including: randomized controlled trials of criminal justice policies, "natural" experiments in crime, and other quasi-experimental studies. A series of experiments conducted by Penn scholars and elsewhere will be examined. This seminar also guides criminology majors in writing a research proposal for their thesis. Students will learn about how to formulate a research question, develop a review of the literature, and how to apply necessary empirical methods. The final paper for this course will be a research proposal that can serve as the basis for the student's senior thesis and to satisfy the senior capstone requirement. Readings will come from the disciplines of criminology, sociology, psychology, economics, and urban planning.
CRIM 4002-402 Criminal Justice Data Analytics Greg Ridgeway TR 1:45 PM-3:14 PM This course covers the tools and techniques to acquire, organize, link and visualize complex data in order to answer questions about crime and the criminal justice system. The course is organized around key questions about police shootings, victimization rates, identifying crime hotspots, calculating the cost of crime, and finding out what happens to crime when it rains. On the way to answer these questions, the course will cover topics including data sources, basic programming techniques, SQL, regular expressions, webscraping, and working with geographic data. The course will use R, an open-source, object oriented scripting language with a large set of available add-on packages. CRIM6002402, SOCI4002402, SOCI6002402
CRIM 5350-401 Quantitative Methods for Public Policy Aaron J Chalfin T 10:15 AM-1:14 PM This course provides an introduction to applied statistical techniques in the social sciences and is tailored, in particular, to students pursuing the master of science degree in the Department of Criminology. It is taught as a basic course in statistics and presumes minimal mathematical or statistical background. We’ll begin with a brief introduction to the research process. We’ll then cover the computation, interpretation and understanding of basic descriptive statistics, distributions, hypothesis testing, measures of association and finally regression analysis. Depending on how much time we have, I will cover several more advanced topics in regression analysis at the end of the semester.
CRIM 6000-301 Pro-Seminar in Criminology David Kirk M 8:30 AM-11:29 AM This course provides an overview of the leading criminological theories of crime. The central focus is on the major theories of crime developed over the past century from the disciplines of economics, psychology, and sociology. The course will focus on the application of social science research as a way to evaluate theories of crime. Special attention is devoted to the issues of measurement of crime and what is known from the available empirical data. In addition, the course will focus on how these theoretical perspectives relate to public policy responses to crime.
CRIM 6002-402 Criminal Justice Data Analytics Greg Ridgeway TR 1:45 PM-3:14 PM This course covers the tools and techniques to acquire, organize, link and visualize complex data in order to answer questions about crime and the criminal justice system. The course is organized around key questions about police shootings, victimization rates, identifying crime hotspots, calculating the cost of crime, and finding out what happens to crime when it rains. On the way to answer these questions, the course will cover topics including data sources, basic programming techniques, SQL, regular expressions, webscraping, and working with geographic data. The course will use R, an open-source, object oriented scripting language with a large set of available add-on packages. CRIM4002402, SOCI4002402, SOCI6002402
CRIM 6005-001 Evidence-Based Crime Prevention Aurelie Ouss W 8:30 AM-11:29 AM This course considers the use of evidence to identify effective crime prevention policies. The course will teach students to think critically about what constitutes convincing evidence, use benefit-cost analysis in comparing policy alternatives, and write effective policy memos that can translate research into practice. We will develop these skills by studying the effects of different policy approaches to crime prevention including incarceration, policing, gun control, drug regulation, and place-based interventions, as well as education, social programs, and labor market policies. Emphasis will be on the methodological challenges to identifying "what works" and the empirical methods to overcome those challenges.
CRIM 6010-001 Causal Inference in the Social Sciences I Aaron J Chalfin T 3:30 PM-6:29 PM This is the first course in a two half-credit course sequence. The course is intended for graduate students who are interested in learning how to do applied social science research which seeks to address causal questions. The course is highly applied and focuses on training students to understand how to use the most common econometric methods that are used to analyze observational data.
CRIM 6011-001 Causal Inference in the Social Sciences II Aaron J Chalfin T 3:30 PM-6:29 PM This is the second course in a two half-credit course sequence. The course is intended for graduate students who are interested in learning how to do applied social science research which seeks to address causal questions. The course is highly applied and focuses on training students to understand how to use the most common econometric methods that are used to analyze observational data.