The Board of Trustees established the Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology at Indiana University Bloomington.

The Institute’s rapid growth led the university to transform it into a department, known first as the Department of Police Administration.

From the beginning, the department offered a four-year BA degree in the College of Arts and Sciences. It was the first criminal justice program in the country to recognize the importance of college-level police work training in the context of the liberal arts.

Robert F. Borkenstein, inventor of the Breathalyzer, joined the university with the vision of moving beyond a police training curriculum to one of discussing crime causation from an interdisciplinary perspective.

The department name was changed to the Department of Forensics Studies to reflect the work of Robert Borkenstein. Dr. J. Erroll Miller was appointed as the first Chair and led the department until 1979, expanding its focus from policing to the entire criminal justice system.

The department attracted top scholars trained in various disciplines during this time, including Hal Pepinsky (sociology, law), Cathy Spatz Widom (psychology), Ellen Dwyer (history), Phil Parnell (anthropology), and Mary Lee Luskin (political science). New faculty members developed innovative courses to complement core courses in forensic and policing science.

In 1985, the department acquired its present name, more accurately reflecting the breadth of its intellectual and interdisciplinary reach.

Coramae Richey Mann was recruited to help establish a doctoral program. Mann was a major intellectual figure in the study of race, gender, and inequality. Her appointment attracted other prominent faculty, helping to ensure the department’s reputation as a leading center of research relating to racism in the criminal justice system.

The Ph.D. program launched in 1997. By this time the faculty included experts in criminal justice, sociology, psychology, law, demography, anthropology, philosophy, and economic theory.

First Ph.D. awarded in Criminal Justice to Natalie Kroovand Hipple.