Online Law Enforcement Courses for Credit
There are many schools and resources online that teach students about different law enforcement topics. Although there are many benefits to those courses, they do not offer any credit. When students go to Study.com, they can not only have access to courses online, they can also work towards credit as well. The website offers a plethora of resources such as lesson quizzes, videos and transcripts.
The course called Criminal Justice 102: Introduction to Law Enforcement has numerous chapters on law enforcement topics. Some of the chapters that can be located in this course include:
- History of U.S. Law Enforcement - Study American policing from 1800-1900 and from 1900-1960.
- Roles in a Police Department - Learn more about the tasks of a police patrol officer, the duties of a police detective and the role of a traffic officer.
- The Role of the Legal System in Law Enforcement - Recall critical information about the role of defense attorneys and judiciary in law enforcement.
Free Online Course Info
The following courses may utilize text, audio, or video transmission methods. In some cases, students may need to download files in various formats in order to access the material. While some of these courses may be offered for credit at their respective schools, students will not receive academic credit for completing the free online versions.
Free Online Law Enforcement Course List
Johns Hopkins University
- Improving Understanding and Collaboration Among First Responders delineates the responsibilities and priorities of different service branches that respond to emergencies, such as law enforcement, firefighters, and medical providers. The training, which is divided into four modules of instructional slides, addresses issues that emergency personnel face before, during, and after a crisis event. Each module is downloadable as a PDF file. Students may perform the required registration process at the Johns Hopkins Center for Public Health Preparedness website to access the complete class (with corresponding audio format included).
MIT
- Law and Society has notes from course lectures that may be downloaded as PDF files. Topics covered include the criminal and civil justice systems, class conflict, and social change, among others. Additional resources include a document referencing anthropology and sociology fundamentals, a social science reading guide, and a list of additional readings.
University of California - Berkeley
- Legal Studies 163 students can download audio files of class sessions that cover subjects like adolescent behavioral motivations and dynamics, juvenile crime jurisprudence, and violent juvenile offenders. These audio lectures are numbered and presented in reverse chronological order, and they do not contain subject matter labels. Several class sessions are also viewable in video format.
- Punishment, Culture, and Society includes video lectures that address capital punishment, the history of prisons, the psychology and philosophy of punishment, and restorative justice. Videos are viewable online at the university's webcast site or on YouTube.
University of California - Irvine
- Hate Crimes consists of ten lessons in text format on subjects like law enforcement and social control, hate crime measurement, and macro-level social theories. Students may either follow the page-by-page chronology of the course as it is laid out or go directly to a particular lesson via the menu bar provided along the top of the site. Supplementary reading materials, which need to be obtained separately, are listed.
- White-Collar and Corporate Crime has text lessons that are viewable online in a page-by-page format. Students may also select specific lessons or topics from provided menus in order to visit them directly. Subjects covered in this course include consumer fraud, unsafe products, government crimes, and the causes of white-collar crime, to name a few.
University of Cape Town
- Todd Clear Speaks on Community Justice addresses what the narrator calls community justice as practiced in the United States. Law enforcement methods that display the emergence of a community orientation - such as community-based, problem-oriented, and moral-voice policing - are explained and discussed. Also covered are the relevance of location to crime and law enforcement and the allocation of financial resources in the criminal justice system. Students may view this video online or download it as an MP4 file.
