Department of Sociology & Crime, Law and Justice

Welcome

Welcome to the Penn State Department of Sociology & Crime, Law and Justice, a thriving academic community dedicated to excellence.  The members of our distinguished faculty are well-published leaders in their academic and research fields and are committed to providing the best possible education for our undergraduate and graduate students.

A degree from our program provides students with broad exposure to disciplinary subject matter so they may analyze issues affecting their lives and society from a critical and informed perspective. We are ranked among the top 20 Sociology Departments in the country and we are committed to theoretically-informed empirical research that meets the highest standards of scientific rigor. We have particular faculty strengths in the areas of criminology/CLJ, demography, family studies, social stratification/inequality, and statistical methods. We also offer training in sociology of education, aging and the life course, sociology of religion, social movements, and theory.

We have over 9,000 alumni living and working all over the world. Currently there are approximately 750 undergraduate students and over 70 students in our graduate program. The partnerships they enjoy with our 50 full-time faculty and instructors prepare them for a wide variety of careers or graduate education.