Criminal Justice Program Highlights

Criminal Justice Overview

The Criminal Justice Program at the Kent Career Technical Center is goal driven to provide the best program of study and training to ensure student success in our industry.

Students are able to enroll in our program for either one or two years. During a student’s first year, students will learn all 12 segments. The segments include; Organizational Structure, Professional Standards including Ethics and Legal Responsibility, Safety, Health and Environment, Public Safety Branches, Law and Legal Systems, Public Relations, Career Development, Workplace Technology, Problem Solving/Investigations, Leadership and Team work, Communications and Applied Academic in Law and Public Safety. These segments fall under our courses named Introduction to Criminal Justice, Introduction to Law Enforcement Tactics, Introduction to Criminal Investigations and Introduction to Crime Scene Processing. These courses allow students to learn and challenge their skills, while being furnished with equipment from our industry and placed into scenario-based training and crime scenes.

The second year of our program allows students to journey further into patrol procedures, court, correctional systems and vice operations with the intent to obtain a deeper understanding of our criminal justice system. In this course, students are involved in advanced traffic stops, mock court trials, correctional scenarios, vice scenarios and field trips to correctional facilities and local courts, which allows them to gain firsthand experience and process information at a more advanced level.

College Credits

FERRIS STATE DUAL ENROLLMENT: Students in the CJ program will also be enrolled as Ferris State University Students receiving 6 concurrent credits for Intro to Criminal Justice and Intro to Law Enforcement if they currently hold a 2.5 GPA or higher.

ARTICULATION CREDITS: Depending on the college the student attends after KCTC, the student will receive articulation credits. The average is 6 college credits awarded, however a student is eligible to receive up to 21 college credits depending on the College or University.

Student Certifications:

1ST YEAR STUDENTS: CPR, First Aid and AED certified and Mental Health First Aid during their first year.

2ND YEAR STUDENTS: Students receive their certification as an emergency police, fire and medical dispatcher.

HSI Cadet Program

All students in the criminal justice program are also enrolled in the HSI Cadet Program where students work with Special Agents from Homeland Security Investigations in handling mock federal cases from interviewing witnesses, interrogating suspects, to obtaining and implementing search and arrest warrants, and testifying at trial.