Mitigating the Protective-Services Orientation in Criminal Justice: An Opening Salvo at the University of Winnipeg

Abstract

This article traces the development of a criminal justice (CJ) program at the University of Winnipeg and places that development in the context of the growth of criminology and criminal justice fields in Canada. The CJ program at the University of Winnipeg began as a distributed and interdisciplinary major, but through a process of self-reflection and discovery, CJ faculty attempted to build a program that was theoretically oriented while not losing sight of its applied roots. The journey can best be described as a mitigation of the protective-services orientation – a somewhat pejorative description of CJ levelled by critical scholars of crime, law, and society. We situate the development of a CJ program at the University of Winnipeg alongside shifts in the traditional liberal arts model of post-secondary education in Canada and reflect upon some of the emerging challenges that face similar departments in the current socio-economic and political climate. The article attempts to open up debate and dialogue about the nature of CJ education in Canada and offers the University of Winnipeg as a case study of the development of the discipline in Canada in a post-secondary context.