Criminal Justice News Letter

Dear Friends, Students, and Colleagues:

This is the fourth edition of the Criminal Justice On-line Newsletter. We hope you enjoy knowing what your criminal justice program is doing. We have some exciting things to report.

• The Behavioral Sciences Department will be moving into the new Academic II building in June 2005. We will be on the third floor which includes very nice offices and great classrooms in our department. Please see the recent photo of Academic II.
• Theta Alpha Delta, our chapter of ACJA, is gearing up to attend the National Conference of the American Criminal Justice Association in March 2005 in Memphis, Tennessee. We are taking 20 students who will participate in seminars and competitions in criminal investigation, firearms, physical agility, and academic testing.
• The regional conference for our region of the American Criminal Justice Association will be hosted by our chapter, Theta Alpha Delta in Springfield in October 2005. We are looking for the opportunity to show them how it is done.
• Bob Cirtin is the author/editor of a book entitled Church Safety and Security, A Practical Guide to be published in the Spring of 2005 by CSS Publishing, (www.csspub.com). The book provides practical information regarding several topics related to providing for the safety of our churches and their congregations. Bob has written four chapters and the remaining four chapters were written by Dennis Lewis, Director of Safety and Security for Springfield Public Schools, Donna Washburn, professor of Social Work at Evangel University, Eddie Spain, the Director of Neuro Sciences for St. John’s Regional Health Center, Springfield, and John Edie, Executive Pastor for Second Baptist Church, Springfield.
• Bob Cirtin is starting a new website company called Safeatchurch.com. The purpose of the website is to serve as a resource for pastors, church leaders, and denomination leaders in the area of church safety and security. The website will have articles relevant to church safety, provide information on services that church leaders can take advantage of such as seminars and consulting, and provide a means to purchase the book. The website should be up and running sometime in mid March.

Introduction to Criminal Justice

The Introduction to Criminal Justice course is now being taught by Evangel graduate Joel Maxwell. Joel is the Director of Training for the Greene County Sheriff’s Department and holds the rank of Sergeant. One of the highlights of the course has always been the mock trial in which students must create a crime scenario, are assigned to play the various roles within the criminal justice system, and then act out those roles in a courtroom situation.

This year Joel arranged for Associate Circuit Court Judge Mark Fitzsimmons to serve as the judge who allowed us to use his actual court room. This fits in with our philosophy of providing a degree of practicality to the education students receive at Evangel. Please the photos of the mock trial in action.

Help Us Locate Graduates

There are still a few graduates that we are trying to locate. The reason we are wanting to contact all of our graduates is to do the following:

• Keep in touch and let you know what the criminal justice program is doing.
• Allows us to be of assistance in the event our graduates need us.
• Facilitates graduates in contacting others graduates with whom they may have lost touch.

We are putting together a display that has the business cards and shirt patches (for those whose career requires them to wear a uniform) of those who graduated from the program. We want all business cards, even for graduates who are not working in the criminal justice field.

Many of you have already provided business cards and patches and we thank you for taking time to do so. We appreciate it when we hear about what our graduates are doing and displaying business cards and patches allows us to brag about our graduates.

Below is a link to a list of graduates that we are still trying to locate. If you know the whereabouts of any of these people, please email us a let us know how to contact them.

Graduates

A note of concern:

There are current discussions among the leadership of the Assemblies of God, and a report recommending, to merge Central Bible College, Assemblies of God Theological Seminary, and Evangel University into one university. The first choice for a name for the new college is Central University of the Assemblies of God. There are other possible names. We ask that you pray for this issue and let us know what you think.

Theta Alpha Delta

Theta Alpha Delta attended our Regional Conference of the American Criminal Justice Association in Omaha, Nebraska. All of our students participated in the various competitions and performed very well. The following represents the awards earned by our students. Please see the photographs of the student at the Regional Conference.

Lower Division are students having fewer than 70 credit hours and Upper Division are students who have 70 or more credit hours.

Trophies were awarded to the top three participants in each category. Approximately 175 students participated from colleges and universities in our region.

Crime Scene Investigation

First Place- Lower Division
Ariel Welshans
J.D. Lawrence
Alyssa Wilson

Third Place- Upper Division
Chad Butrick
Joy Burkholder
Daniel Griffin

Academic Testing Competition

First Place- Lower Division, Criminal Law
Brandon Hoing

Second Place- Lower Division, Juvenile Justice
Jason Lundy

Physical Agility Course

First Place- Women age 19 to 23
Sarelissa Ruiz

Third Place- Women age 19 to 25
Kimberly Miller

Second Place- Men age 19 to 25
J.D. Lawrence

Third Place- Men age 19 to 25
David Dodge

Firearms Course- Team Competition

First Place- Upper Division
Greg Arriola
Jason Gray
Chad Butrick

Third Place- Upper Division
David Dodge
Katie Edgar
J.D. Lawrence

Firearms Course- Individual Competition

Third Place- Lower Division
Greg Arriola

Criminal Justice Association Bylaws