Incorporating Service Learning into Delinquency and Criminology Courses: What a Difference a Semester Makes.

This three semester project was an outgrowth of a service learning grant awarded by the Louisiana Board of Regents in which faculty recipients spent one semester in the Fall of 2006 involved in service learning training as well as the planning and development of a service learning component to be introduced into a traditional classroom course. In the Spring of 2007, one section of a two section Juvenile Delinquency course incorporated a service learning component requirement for students to complete. Students were required to volunteer 20 hours minimum of volunteer service to one of more than 40 public and non-profit community organizations providing services to at-risk youth. Students choosing not to participate in service learning were permitted to transfer into the non-service learning course. Because of the success of this initial course, service learning was incorporated the following Fall 2007 semester into a Criminology course. This paper focuses on the outcomes of those two courses in which generally students reported ambivalence initially about performing mandatory voluntary service over the course of the semester, but at the completion of their service learning projects they expressed personal satisfaction in having received some "real world experience" from their coursework. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]