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Things To Do With Your Criminal Justice Degree
by
Josh
Stone
A lot of students considering a civil service career
think that a criminal justice degree is only good for being a law
enforcement officer or, in combination with a legal degree, a criminal
lawyer. Here are a whole range of criminal justice career choices that many
degree-holders overlook, but are well worth consideration:
Social Work/
Personal Cases
These may include child support and child protective services,
missing persons, domestic violence and spousal or elderly abuse. Domestic
legal social work is often identified as having extreme pros and cons to it.
On the one hand, you're working to make everyone's home life better. On the
other, the work can be stressful when confronting a perpetrator or
heart-wrenching when confronting a victim. Social workers will work with law
enforcement officers to assess a domestic situation, monitor a case to
ensure that the desires of the court are carried out, and make further
recommendations to the court for the disposal of cases.
Criminal Investigators and Special Agents
Also known as "the Feds". Working in federal investigations is a whole new
ball game compared to municipal police work. As for special agents, these
are not limited to the FBI; nearly every federal agency has some type of
special agent. These include the Department of Homeland Security, the
Environmental Protection Agency, the Internal Revenue Service's Criminal
Investigation Division, the United States Marshals Service, the U.S. Secret
Service, U.S. Postal Inspection Service, and the National Park Service.
Special agent work is a way to combine a criminal justice career with many
other fields of government work and specialty interests.
Immigration and Customs Inspectors
These are the public servants who control access of persons and
property into and out of the United States. Quite a high-profile job lately,
with today's concerns over terrorism. A challenging job, with being able to
speak multiple languages fluently a big plus (in some cases a requirement).
Sometimes your biggest concern will not be stopping a terrorist, but
preventing a confused, but innocent person from being mistaken for one! In
addition, you maybe on the spot to check or clear visiting diplomats and
dignitaries from other lands.
Police Detectives
This is usually an after-the-fact officer. The law enforcement officer does
the arresting; you just solve the crimes. Be aware that it's hardly the
glamorous job Hollywood movies would have you believe; your reality will be
day-to-day mundane tasks such as collecting forensic evidence, checking
background records, interviewing witnesses, and testifying in court. Police
detectives are of course categorized into many department specialties.
Robbery and burglary alone accounts for a very large portion of police
detective work.
Correctional Officers and Jailers
Well, that's pretty self-explanatory, isn't it? You'll be responsible for
the care, custody, and control of inmates, whether they have been arrested
and are awaiting trial or have been convicted of a crime and sentenced to
serve time in jail. A prison or jail is a controlled environment which in
many ways is a microcosm of a society, with it's own challenges to face.
While the controlled environment of the jail or prison will seem a more
secure niche, unexpected surprises can develop - particularly in the intake
zone. And when things get out of hand in a prison, they tend to escalate
quickly.
Homeland Security
Responsible to prevent, detect, respond to, and recover from acts of
terrorism. Currently a high-profile job to say the least, and not for the
faint of heart, but you can count on lots of federal support during this
time of national crisis. You'll be working with other federal agencies as
well, such as the FBI and CIA, military counter-intelligence, and the NSA.
The specialties with the Department of Homeland Security include collecting
and sorting data on potential threats, surveillance, investigation, and
assessing and alerting other agencies to potential threats.
Private Detective/ Investigator
The number-one most mythologized profession, misrepresented in movies and
television about equally with spies. As opposed to the high drama and
dangerous intrigue portrayed in fiction, your typical jobs as a private
investigator might include tracking cheating spouses, gathering evidence for
private attorneys in civil cases, or investigating spurious claims for an
insurance company. Leave your Magnum, your Porche, and your nubile blond
mistresses home - but always carry a notepad and pen.
Criminal Intelligence
Well away from any street work, the criminal intelligence agent works behind
the scenes, gathering data on gang members, fugitives, and organized crime
and logging it into databases where it will be accessible to officers and
detectives in the field. This is often an under-recognized profession but
obviously essential; when the officer types a gang member's name into the
computer in his patrol car and discovers the identities of the other five
members of that gang, a criminal intelligence worker at the base made this
possible.
Computer Crime
Not a specific specialty just yet, but dealing with the cyber-side of
criminal justice is one of the most in-demand fields as the number of
computers in society grows each year. You'll of course need to combine your
criminal justice degree with a computer science degree. Crimes committed
through or with a computer may include fraud, offensive content, harassment
and hate groups, drug trafficking, and cyber terrorism. If you imagined
computer viruses or email scams were perpetrated by individual kids, think
again: Computer fraud and data theft is actually an international organized
crime operation and a multi-billion dollar per year industry! Police
departments also need forensic data analysts on hand to find and recover
evidence which may be on a suspect's computer and may have been encrypted or
deleted. In the future, a special department may be created within the
criminal justice system to deal with this special category, as currently
many police departments have to outsource their computer-related work.
This list hardly scratches the surface of every career opportunity available
in the criminal justice field, but should provide a broad sample of what's
out there. Far from regular street police work, there are career
opportunities to satisfy every interest and skill set.
Freelance writer for over eleven years.
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