Spring 2027

Criminal Justice Field Observation

Criminal Justice Field Observation combines field placements in criminal justice agencies with seminars to develop a sociological understanding of criminal justice processes by applying concepts and theories to field experience.

offering recorded2–3 credits
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 Joshua MayersKiara Hibler

Summary

1 / 3

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2025: 3.94 GPA, 96.2% A/AB (n=53 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.95 GPA, 96.4% A/AB (n=55 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.89 GPA, 93.6% A/AB (n=47 letter grades).

What you’ll be able to do

  • Explain the role that mental health or substance abuse can play in one’s contact with the criminal legal system.

  • Assess how an individual’s race and socio-economic class can impact the likelihood of contact with the American criminal legal system, as well as how it impacts their experience.

  • Evaluate how consideration of a client’s/ individual’s cultural heritage and practices can improve one’s effectiveness in providing services.

  • Analyze the potential effects of trauma exposure on a practitioner or service provider and compare self-care strategies to deal with this.

  • Conduct client interviews based on knowledge of the steps needed to prepare for interviews and document the information gathered.

  • Describe the breadth of stakeholders to the work being conducted by community agencies.

Source: UW Guide 1 UW Guide 2

Grade history

↗
average GPA
letter grades
A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

Declared in Criminal Justice certificate and LEGAL ST/​SOC 131

LEGALST/SOC 694

This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree

Professors

Spring 2027

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2025: 3.94 GPA, 96.2% A/AB (n=53 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.98 GPA, 100.0% A/AB (n=29 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.96 GPA, 100.0% A/AB (n=24 letter grades). Includes jointly taught sections.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2025: 3.94 GPA, 96.2% A/AB (n=53 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.90 GPA, 92.3% A/AB (n=26 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.83 GPA, 87.0% A/AB (n=23 letter grades). Includes jointly taught sections.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

JOSHUA MAYERS is recorded teaching in Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Spring 2023, Fall 2023, Spring 2024, Fall 2024, Spring 2025, Fall 2025, Spring 2026. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

KIARA HIBLER is recorded teaching in Spring 2024, Fall 2024, Spring 2025, Fall 2025, Spring 2026. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist
FLD 001Classroom Instruction0 / 230
FLD 002Classroom Instruction0 / 230
FLD 001Classroom Instruction0 / 200
FLD 002Classroom Instruction0 / 200

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections. Enrollment reflects scan time.

Meeting source records
Download part 1

Student experience

the class

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2025: 3.94 GPA, 96.2% A/AB (n=53 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.95 GPA, 96.4% A/AB (n=55 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.89 GPA, 93.6% A/AB (n=47 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

No workload feedback recorded.

Topics

  • Sociological understanding of criminal justice processes
  • Role of mental health and substance abuse in criminal legal system contact
  • Stakeholders in community agency work

Skills

  • Assessing the impact of race and socio-economic class on criminal legal system contact and experience.
  • Analyzing the effects of trauma exposure on practitioners and comparing self-care strategies.
  • Conducting client interviews and documenting gathered information.
  • Evaluating how cultural heritage considerations improve service effectiveness.

Grades

Latest available · Spring 2026— not enough history to project Spring 2027.

average GPA
A / AB grades
letter grades
Instructor

Grade distribution · % of letter grades

A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

Grades over time

Through Spring 2026

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Spring 2026 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1280 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

Download part 1
Selected offering source records
LEGALST/SOC 694 · Spring 2027

Criminal Justice Field Observation

Recorded 2026-10-14
LEGALST/SOC 694 · Spring 2027

Criminal Justice Field Observation

Recorded 2026-10-14
Raw records 
[
  {
    "run_id": "20261014T203208-0851c9a1",
    "semester": "1274",
    "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00",
    "offering_id": "1274:535:017679",
    "course_id": "LEGALST/SOC 694",
    "course_uid": "course_62ad422bce0bf4bf971da3b1",
    "term_id": "1274",
    "source_course_id": "017679",
    "source_subject_id": "535",
    "title": "Criminal Justice Field Observation",
    "credits_min": 2,
    "credits_max": 3,
    "typically_offered": "Summer"
  },
  {
    "run_id": "20261014T203208-0851c9a1",
    "semester": "1274",
    "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00",
    "offering_id": "1274:900:017679",
    "course_id": "LEGALST/SOC 694",
    "course_uid": "course_62ad422bce0bf4bf971da3b1",
    "term_id": "1274",
    "source_course_id": "017679",
    "source_subject_id": "900",
    "title": "Criminal Justice Field Observation",
    "credits_min": 2,
    "credits_max": 3,
    "typically_offered": "Summer"
  }
]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

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Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
Download part 1
Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

Download part 1
Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "9b91e2b8f7929dc4926187b8d63c9534527e8495428be822b32b1d05dabe3763",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}