BERLIN — White Mountains Community College, with a campus in Berlin and academic centers in Littleton and North Conway, has added a new entry-level certificate and new courses to the criminal justice program for the fall semester which begins Aug. 30. These changes will align the criminal justice curriculum with the current and projected needs of the industry by providing students with in-demand skills for careers in law enforcement positions at various local, state and federal levels.
“One of our goals is to continually align the criminal justice curriculum with the needs of the profession,” said Jennifer Lemoine, White Mountains Community College criminal justice program coordinator and a 17-year veteran police officer. “Through our continued work with our advisory board, that includes local law enforcement professionals in our community, we found important topics facing the industry today like mental health and crisis intervention that needed to be added to the curriculum to prepare students for a career.”
The three new courses that were added include Drug Abuse and the Law, Introduction to Homeland Security, and Crisis Intervention. White Mountains Community College also created a new six-course entry-level criminal justice certificate that will enable graduates to demonstrate an understanding of the concepts and components of the American Justice System from arrest, trial, incarceration and release/rehabilitation along with the many duties and functions of law enforcement. This certificate was designed to allow high school students to take the college courses for concurrent college credit (all courses have an online option) and therefore, they have the potential to graduate high school with their diploma as well as a certificate in Criminal Justice.
As part of the criminal justice program, students experience 120 hours of on-the-job training observation that is tailored to their interest within the profession and often leads to a full-time job after graduation. Graduates can anticipate careers in areas such as homeland security, border patrol, corrections, law enforcement and police departments, an area with faster than average job growth.
