| dc.description.abstract | In light of the need of building greater trust and improving service delivery on the
part of criminal justice professionals, serious thought needs to be put towards
promoting and developing empathetic responses of criminal justice students during
training and education. The approaches towards training and education of criminal
justice professionals must also be adapted with an eye to their future conduct and
the complexities of social issues they will encounter. It is argued that in order for
future criminal justice professionals trained at university to provide a more
empathetic and community-oriented service, the arts and humanities must play a
vital supportive role. This paper is an analytical review of current findings in
pedagogical research and practical implementation, drawing also from the
comparative findings in medical humanities, with a view to supporting the
arguments for integrating arts and humanities in the teaching and learning of
criminal justice. The recommendations are to develop modules, seminars,
assignments, and guidelines for teaching methods into the criminal justice teaching
curriculum, and also to provide support for additional academic and extracurricular
activities in the arts and humanities as a part of the degree programme’s annual
plan. The teaching and activities must be student centred and planned with their
participation. Developing creative and reflective practices, including maintenance
of reflective portfolios for empathetic and critical thinking in the formation of
professional identity, is also recommended. | en_US |
