The criminal justice — professional track bachelor’s program, which launched Fall 2024, will prepare students for professional careers in criminal justice and related agencies. Housed in the College of Community Innovation and Education and designed to provide students with a broad understanding of crime and the justice system, the new track also embeds courses that culminate in a certificate in criminal justice management and leadership.

“In recent years, we haven’t had any direct feed lines from the academic environment directly into an operational position,” says , associate professor of criminal justice and professional track coordinator in the Department of Criminal Justice. “The professional track aims to equip students for promotion and advancement as they move through their careers in correctional or policing agencies.”

Available both fully online and face-to-face, the professional track follows the same core requirements as the traditional , but it’s tailored toward the acquisition of a criminal justice management and leadership certificate along with the state certification. Students’ electives are more leadership-oriented and public administration-focused, with courses covering topics like budgeting and human resources.

It’s also unique in that it culminates in a mandatory internship — a police or correctional academy. Since these academies don’t always operate on a rolling basis, student sometimes experience a waiting period between graduation and commencement of the 770 or 420 hour academies for state certification, which then takes a few months to complete. The professional track streamlines this process by embedding the academy into the program of study as an internship, allowing students to go right from graduation to employment.

Another benefit of the program is the creation of relationship-building and networking opportunities between students, agencies, communities and the university. Watkins says the need to develop quality law-enforcement and corrections officers has been growing, and this new track can help answer that call.

“Here in Central Florida, the pieces have been there, and we just had to put them together,” Watkins says. “We’ve received tons of support from law enforcement, and it just kept building and building. Why not take advantage of an opportunity where you have a group of academics and practitioners collaborating on community partnerships and finding students jobs?”

The call for law-enforcement officers who have a four-year degree isn’t new. In fact, it’s been part of Presidential Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice recommendations since the 1960s. Through meetings with leaders of various local law-enforcement agencies, Watkins and Matthew Matusiak — a former faculty member who helped develop the program — have also been learning of each individual community’s needs.

This will assist faculty in providing more tailored advising services for students, who can be steered toward the professional relationships that might be most beneficial to them and their goals. It also facilitates the creation of a professional pipeline and targeted recruitment pool for law-enforcement agencies, especially one that feeds into serving local communities.

Over time, Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ă˝ criminal justice faculty will be able to conduct research and develop a database that tracks the professional outcomes of each cohort. Factors such as job satisfaction, promotions, community satisfaction and more can be used to help determine the program’s measurable impact and adjust as necessary.

“Our hope is to have a greater capacity via program and professional metrics to see and know where our students went and succeeded,” Watkins says. “The ultimate goal for the professional track is to equip students who want to serve their communities as they work toward becoming the next generation of law-enforcement leaders.”

Students who wish to declare the criminal justice professional track should contact Watkins at cory.watkins@ucf.edu.

His most recent endeavors have led him to sharing his expertise overseas in Belgrade, Serbia. He has traveled three times since November 2022 to assist officials in developing a model for international security and information-sharing among various agencies. His budding international partnership with the country’s University of Criminal Investigation and Police Studies (UCIPS) dates to early 2022, when they contacted Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ă˝ to learn more about mitigating national security concerns and fostering interagency operability — a crucial aspect of crime analysis.

Central Florida’s security infrastructure is among the most unique in the country, Watkins says. The region’s numerous entities and attractions, including the Space Coast, theme parks, various sports and concert venues, Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ă˝, Central Florida Research Park and Lake Nona Medical City can all be considered potential targets for various security threats and hazards. These local- and state-owned and operated centers serve as hubs for the receipt, analysis and exchange of threat-related information among local, state and federal agencies, as well as private sector partners. Their central mission is to identify and address both immediate and emerging threats to homeland security.

“I’ve long wanted to get involved in fostering international activities and partnerships, and this one has really taken off,” he says. “Although I’m not an expert in national security, I do understand critical infrastructures and the importance of sharing information. Interagency operability involves various agencies collaborating to improve information-sharing infrastructures for data and information. That assists in developing deliverables to different audiences that lead to more secure neighborhoods, communities and regions.”

When UCIPS delegates visited Orlando in June 2022, Watkins set them up with meetings and tours of many of these key agencies. Those included the Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ă˝ Police Department, Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ă˝ Emergency Operations Center, Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ă˝ Downtown, Valencia College’s School of Public Safety, the Orange County Sheriff’s Department and the Central Florida Intelligence Exchange (CFIX).

“That was a real eye-opening experience for [the UCIPS delegates] and is how they got the ball moving in their country to develop their version of a countrywide fusion center,” Watkins says. “They recognize that we are a unique region and are interested not only in learning how we keep it safe, but also how they can take similar principles and apply it to their region. They’re using that model built based on these information-sharing infrastructures, capacities and level of expertise among all players.”

From there, collaborative efforts accelerated. UCIPS delegates invited Watkins to Serbia for the first time in November 2022 to speak on sharing infrastructures at their Archibald Reiss Days Conference, and again in June 2023 to speak on crime analysis at the International Science Council.

In October 2023, UCIPS delegates returned to Orlando again to visit the CFIX fusion center. There, Watkins and intelligence exchange officials worked with UCIPS to assess the status of Serbia’s blossoming information-sharing infrastructure. That same week, a meeting of the Southern Shield consortium, an intelligence information-sharing network in the southeastern United States, was also taking place in Orlando. To top off their visit, Watkins and UCIPS delegates signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that, while informal, signified their commitment to continued collaboration. It also marked UCIPS’ centennial MOU.

“The world is a rapidly changing ecosystem, but we’ve seen large strides made in the development of Serbia’s security infrastructure, improvements in their analyst training and movement toward seamless operations,” he says. “They’ve got their fusion center in the course of development, and they’ve got support from the Ministry of the Interior and all the major players over there. Now, we get to focus on training the people working in the fusion center through our newest crime analysis project, which is just getting underway.”

This past February, Watkins visited Serbia again to attend UCIPS’ Police Day celebration, which marked the university’s 103rdanniversary. Being able to attend these international conferences and events has been among the most exciting aspects of this partnership because it provides the opportunity to foster connections and engage in collective sharing of knowledge, he says.

Watkins also sees these efforts as a potential segue for collaborative assistance efforts with other countries in similar positions.

“This is much bigger than just us,” Watkins says. “It’s been incredible to watch it take off, and I think this is a testament to all the people who are extremely skilled and well-placed in various academic, law enforcement, and analyst organizations both in Belgrade and here in Central Florida. The bad guys are getting better every day, and we have to be on our A-game. The importance of collaboration among agencies — law enforcement, local, state and federal agencies — is absolutely essential within the states, but collaboration internationally is vitally important, too.”