School of Law and Political Sciences

Master in Criminology

Hybrid
36 credits

Courses

Specialization
CRM512Criminal Creology
3 credits
The course studies criminal phenomenon in its constitutive elements, including crime, This course examines the nature, object, and necessity of criminal creology: the creologic study of crime. Students will consider the theory of “human act in se”; shifting the study of crime from without to within human act per se, the compatibility and incompatibility of creative activity and criminal activity. This course will also study criminal creologization: acreative activity as a criminological factor, creative activity and development of psychological and psychiatric characteristics of criminal personality. Finally students will learn about levels of creological dangerous and criminological threats.
CRM614Current Events in Criminology
3 credits
Students, researchers and practitioners participate in addressing questions on criminology relating to Lebanese, Arab, and World current events.
CRM690AEnd of Studies Project
3 credits
Criminology students are required to prepare a project, either theoretical or practical, at the end of their Master. It will be publish in the USEK Journal of Criminology.
CRM516Forensic Medicine I
3 credits
This course helps students to understand human thoughts and the consequences of pressure, know the basic ideas in forensic medicine, learn about the Lebanese legislation (law, decree), their rights and responsibilities, and know how to judge the quality and authenticity of an expert report. The course will also cover medico¬legal study and dating of violence lesions, examination of a dead body, levee body, and importance of autopsy contribution and medico­legal expertise.
CRM612Forensic Medicine II
3 credits
This course focuses on the study of medico­legal activities in matters of criminal law, and of civil law. With regard to the first type of activities, this course examines findings of physical, psychic and sexual violence, identification of the author of crime, age determination, amenability to detention, investigating alleged cases of torture, forensic psychiatry criminal expertise, etc. With regard to the matters of civil law, Forensic Medicine II concentrates on various studies, such as evaluation of suspected physical injury, guardianship, expertise in medical liability, etc. Students will learn to analyze medico­legal case studies that cover both criminal and civil law issues, such as murder, suspect death, victimology, sexual offences, abuse of children, collective criminology, testimony in court, information about driving abilities, etc.
CRM613Forensics
3 credits
This course will focus on the work of forensic experts and tribunals, fire and explosion forensic investigation, fingerprint identification (dactyloscopy), and bone identification (osteology).
CRM511General Criminology
3 credits
The course studies the criminal phenomenon in its constitutive elements, including crime, the criminal, the victim and social reaction. The course will also examine such concepts as levels of dangerous, transition to criminal act, prevention of crime, issues confronting criminal law and criminology.
CRM680Internship in Criminology
3 credits
Students will complete an internship with a medico­legal institute, a psychiatric hospital, a prison, etc. in Lebanon or abroad.
CRM611Psychiatric Criminology
3 credits
Criminal threat is often associated with mental disorders. Recent studies using standardized diagnostic instruments confirm this relationship. Compared to the general population, the arrest rate of patients with mental disorders is significantly higher. Incarcerated persons suffer from more psychiatric disorders. Psychotic disorders, in particular schizophrenia with hallucinations and delusions, antisocial personality disorder and addiction disorders increase the risk of a person committing homicide. Epidemiological studies confirm that various DSM5 mental disorders significantly increase the prevalence of violent behavior. The higher the psychiatric comorbidity, the higher the risk of aggressive behavior and suicide.
CRM514Psychological Criminology
3 credits
This course will enable students to integrate psychological theories in order to understand the criminal phenomenon, to acquire the basic concepts of different theories and to become operational within the practice of research and future considerations. This course will also examine several clinical cases to illustrate and help students understand both the psychology of the person who committed a crime and the victim.
CRM513Questions of Ethics in Criminology
3 credits
The aim of this course is to enable the would­be criminologists to become acquainted with the fundamental knowledge of medical ethics and to encourage them to think critically in a context related to ethical criminology. Facing a complex medical situation, the appropriate reaction is not always easy to determine. It is usually decided in reference to concepts that people have. This course, on the basis of specific themes, will help students to think, understand, criticize, compare, analyze and draw conclusions, thus enabling them make better decisions when decisions are not easy to make.
CRM515Sociological Criminology
3 credits
Sociologists are interested in how society is created and how human beings form social relationships and interact with each other. Criminology is a related discipline that examines “crime” and “deviance”, and the processes through which the criminal justice system responds to these phenomena. Studying Sociological criminology will provide a sound understanding of the key conceptual and substantive issues involved in the study of society, crime and criminal justice.

Mission

The Master in Criminology endorses a special mission: to make a better world of democracy. It means that the Master students take responsibility for developing a critical criminological thought process that is necessary for a democracy to be a home for security and fraternity.

Program Educational Objectives

1. Lawyers and non­lawyers graduates in criminology will be able (a) to engage in research in criminology; (b) to effectively participate in the penal legal profession, and (c) to effectively participate in rehabilitating criminals in general, and prisoners in particular.
2. Lawyers graduates in criminology will be able to assess the level of the defendant’s criminological threat, with the aim of fixing equitable penalties: (a) as criminal judges (proving that the degree a defendant’s criminological threat is high), either at prosecution level (general prosecutor), or at investigation level (investigating judge, indictment division), or at judgment level (assizes court or at all degrees of criminal jurisdictions for misdemeanors); (b) as criminal lawyers: proving that the degree of the client’s criminological threat is not high, and (c) as judiciary police: to be able to detect the criminological threat.
3. Non­lawyer graduates in criminology will have the ability to become (a) assistants to criminal judges or lawyers, and to assess a defendant’s criminological threat; (b) assistants to medical examiners to participate in operating medico­legal autopsies; (c) assistants to medical experts in courts, to assess a defendant’s or victim’s mental health; (d) assistants to psychologists, psychiatrists or sexologists to study a defendant’s or victim’s mental health, and (e) activists in non­ governmental organizations in fighting violence, sexual abuse, sexual harassment, etc.

Program Outcomes

a. Students will acquire an ability to draft detainee assessment briefs.
b. An ability to submit projects of law or bills for the prevention of crime.
c. An ability to draft criminals’ mental health assessment.
d. An ability to assist in medico­legal autopsies.
Holy Spirit University of Kaslik
Tel.: (+961) 9 600 000
Fax : (+961) 9 600 100
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