Course Offerings

Summer Session - 2026 

Online Asynchronous 5-Week-1: June 1, 2026 to July 2, 2026

ICJ 702: Comparative Criminal Justice Systems

Course Description: This course, using as a baseline the criminal justice system of the United States, will provide a general introduction into the social origin and context of law and criminal law. Afterward, beginning with a contextualization of world cultures, legal families, and systems of government, students will study the commonalities and variations in criminal justice systems around the world, including law enforcement, adjudication, and post-sentencing measures. Special attention will be paid to the impact of the growth of private security, victim assistance, and corruption. Examples are drawn from a variety of political systems. The course will conclude with a brief look at international law enforcement cooperation. The main goals and objectives of this course are to help students: 

• understand the role and relativity of law and criminal law in society
• understand the basic components and processes of criminal justice systems
• understand the essential differences between the main legal traditions
• understand select aspects of the criminal justice system in a particular country/region 

About the Professor: Dr. Maria (Maki) Haberfeld is a Professor of Police Science at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City and Chair of the Department of Law, Police Science, and Criminal Justice Administration. She holds a PhD in Criminal Justice from City University of New York. She has just completed a leave of absence from John Jay College and served as Assistant Commissioner for Professional Development for the New York City Police Department. She is one of the co-creators of the Police Leadership Program for the NYPD sworn officers and the Academic Director of this program since its creation in 2001. Professor Haberfeld has trained police forces around the country and the world, including Poland, the Dominican Republic, the Czech Republic, India, China, Cyprus, Turkey, Mongolia, Taiwan, Kazakhstan, and conducted research in over 70 police departments in the US and 35 countries. Dr. Haberfeld also developed and trained some units of the US Military forces, including the U.S. Marines. She has published 24 academic books (authored, co-authored, edited, and co-edited) on policing and over 50 book chapters and journal articles in peer-reviewed publications. Her books were translated into 3 languages and are used by police departments around the country and around the world. 

Learn more about Dr. Haberfeld.

ICJ 705: Human Rights and Counterterrorism 

Course Description: This course examines how states respond to terrorism and how counter-terrorism laws, policies, and practices affect human rights in the post-October 2023 security landscape. It evaluates the legality, legitimacy, and effectiveness of these measures through international human rights and humanitarian law, United Nations mandates, and judicial oversight. Using case studies on sanctions and listings, foreign fighter return and repatriation, extremist content governance, and AI-enabled risk scoring, the course explores security–rights tradeoffs across different state contexts and the implications for core rights, including life, liberty, fair trial, privacy, expression, association, and non-discrimination. By the end, students will understand the international legal obligations that govern how states counter terrorism. 

• Understand terrorism, counter-terrorism, and human rights, and the main international human rights and humanitarian law instruments that regulate state responses.
• Analyze the legal duties of states and international organizations, including the UN counter-terrorism architecture and regional frameworks.
• Critically assess UN Member States’ counter-terrorism policies and practices, focusing on oversight, accountability, and security–rights tradeoffs.
• Evaluate how emerging technologies, such as surveillance and AI, shape counter-terrorism and human rights, including issues of effectiveness, oversight, and rights protection. 

About the Professor: Dr. Rodriguez is a Supervisory Special Agent with more than 22 years of frontline and strategic experience spanning interdiction, smuggling, criminal investigations, interagency collaboration, and international partnerships. He has shaped U.S. national security and drug control policy through roles at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy and the National Security Council, and as a retired U.S. Coast Guard reservist and commissioned officer, he has supported critical missions in search and rescue, maritime law enforcement, port security, national defense, and NATO operations. Dr. Rodriguez holds a Ph.D. in Criminal Justice with a specialization in Law and Public Policy, a Master’s degree in Military Operational Art and Science, a Master’s degree in Management (Justice Administration specialization), and a Bachelor’s degree in Criminology. 

Online Asynchronous 5-Week-2: July 13, 2026 to August 13, 2026

ICJ 704: Crime, Justice and Cultural Struggles

Course Description: This course explores how culture, power, and identity shape systems of international criminal justice worldwide. Students will be introduced to key concepts of culture and examine how they intersect with contemporary conflicts and inequalities within justice systems. We will engage with issues tied to socially and culturally defined identities, including gender, race, ethnicity, caste, religion, and sexuality, as well as questions of rights related to property, place, behavior, and economic justice. Drawing on case studies from multiple continents and countries, the course invites students to critically analyze how justice is experienced, contested, and transformed in diverse contexts. In addition to substantive knowledge, students will develop skills in interpreting and evaluating research, learning a range of methodological and analytical approaches used in the field. The course also emphasizes clear and persuasive communication, helping students strengthen their academic writing and discussions as they engage with complex global issues.

About the Professor: Dr. Katarzyna Celinska is an Associate Professor in the Department of Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration (LPS). She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in research methodology, crime and justice, crime and culture, and prisons. Her research focuses on corrections, women’s experiences in prison, violence prevention programs, evaluation research, and international crime and criminal justice. In 2018, she completed a multi-phase mixed-methods study in a women’s state prison, examining coping with family separation and adjustment to incarceration. More recently, her work has centered on the ongoing Ukrainian refugee crisis in Poland. Since February 2022, she has conducted qualitative research in Warsaw on assistance provided to refugees and on the adjustment processes of older Ukrainian refugees. Dr. Celinska has published in a range of scholarly journals, including the Journal of Family Therapy, Journal of Juvenile Justice, Studies in Nationalism and Ethnicity, The Prison Journal, Women & Criminal Justice, and the International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, as well as in the Archives of Criminology, a leading and long-established Polish criminological journal. 

ICJ 731: Online Criminal Markets

Course Description: This interdisciplinary course explores the role of clearnet and darknet spaces in the commission of transnational crime, the types of criminal markets operating within these spaces, and the specific online spaces where transnational crime occurs. It will analyze the use of clearnet chat rooms, discussion forums, marketplaces, VoIP, instant messaging, social media and other clearnet platforms, as well as darknet marketplaces, discussion forums, social media, and vendor and boutique shops, that facilitate transnational crimes, including cybercrime, environmental crime, intellectual property crime, and various forms of trafficking. The course critically assesses transnational crime research on clearnet and darknet criminal markets to identify emerging criminal networks and new online spaces used to commit different forms of transnational crime. Finally, the course evaluates criminal justice and policy responses to online criminal markets.

About the Professor: Professor Logie is a Ph.D. candidate in the Criminal Justice program at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a research associate at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice Center for Cybercrime Studies. His research interests include cybercrime, darknet forums, darknet marketplaces, fraud, and hate crimes. He has published articles on these topics in Justice Quarterly, Criminology & Public Policy, and Crime Science. Professor Logie is also an adjunct lecturer who has taught criminal justice, statistics, cybersecurity, and computer science courses at several CUNY campuses. He has earned master’s degrees in criminal justice, digital forensics and cybersecurity, and business information systems.

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