The purpose of this study was to develop a concept of higher education which would be responsive to the needs of criminal justice. The study sought first to identify from both the popular and professional literature the principal roles of the three main component areas of criminal justice (police, courts, and corrections). Second, the study sought to identify those fundamental areas of knowledge which would support the common criminal justice roles; and, finally, the study sought to formulate the essential items of knowledge thus developed into an inventory of academic requirements for criminal justice education and to validate that inventory by subjecting it to the scrutiny of a panel of experts for their evaluation.

The problem of this study was to describe a conceptual design for general education with interdisciplinary qualities leading to student self-understanding and continuous self-development. This study emerged out of the need to gain some insight into the causes of decline and/or abandonment of general education programs during periods of social disorganization, and to determine whether a relationship.exists between mounting social problems and the more intense kinds of problems experienced by college-age youth during these periods.