LAW ENFORCEMENT
Training in police academies includes learning about duties such as patrol, narcotics and vice investigation, and other routine functions. Criminal justice careers are available in administrative procedures, human relations, analysis of crime patterns, information storage and retrieval, police organization and management, criminal investigation, and criminal evidence and procedures.
Career options are listed below in local, state, and federal areas:
- Attorney General administrator
- Border patrol
- Code enforcement officer (local)
- College campus security, investigator, and director
- Community relations officer
- Community services officer
- Constable
- Coroner
- Customs agent
- Federal Agencies (ATF, CIA, DEA, DER, FBI,
- IRS)
- Fish and Game enforcement
- Homeland security special agent
- Highway patrol or state police officer
- Law enforcement administrator
- Law enforcement personnel administrator
- Military police and investigator
- Narcotics officer
- Police dispatcher or 911 communications officer
- Police officer (local or state)
- Police officer (federal-capitol, mint, and parks)
- Police officer- juvenile/youth
- Sheriff’s deputy
- State criminal investigator
- U.S. Marshal
- U.S. or State Park Ranger service
FORENSICS OR CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION
The application of criminal investigation to secure scientifically evaluated evidence, confirming chemical analysis of drug seizures, DNA profiling, processing biological evidence such as: hair, blood, semen stains, saliva residue, and bite marks to individualize a possible offender; applying principles and techniques of chemistry, physics, biology, and geology to the identification and comparison of crime-scene evidence, ballistics or the examination of firearms, discharged bullets and cartridges, handwriting or document analysis, and photographing evidence at a crime scene.
Career options include:
- Ballistics examiner
- Biologist
- Biochemist
- Crime scene analyst
- Crime scene photographer
- Crime scene technician
- Crime lab administrator
- Criminalist
- Digital forensic specialist
- Document examiner
- Evidence custodian
- Evidence technician
- Fingerprint examiner
- Firearms and tool mark examiner
- Forensic scientist
- Polygraph examiner
CORRECTIONS
Covers correctional institutions, rehabilitation programming, probation and parole, and community-based facilities such as half-way houses, drug treatment centers and alcohol detoxification centers at local, state, and federal levels.
Career options include:
- Correctional administrator
- Correctional educator
- Correctional industry administrator
- Correctional officer (county, state, or federal)
- Correctional recreationist
- Correctional counselor
- Detention center administrator
- Parole administrator (county, state or federal)
- Parole counselor (county, state or federal)
- Parole officer (county, state, or federal)
- Pre-release work center counselor
- Probation administrator (county, state, or federal)
- Probation counselor (county, state, or federal)
- Probation officer (adult: county, state, or federal)
- Work-study program counselor
- Youth worker
COURT SERVICES
Include pre-sentence investigation, communicating with potential jurors, maintaining official records, certifying records of court orders and establishing court calendars.
Career options include:
- Bailiff
- Court administrator
- Court or law clerk
- Court stenographer
- Law librarian
- Paralegal
- Pre-law
- Pre-sentence investigator
- Pre-trial intervention officer
JUVENILE SERVICES
Personnel receive juveniles after arrest, contact relatives, investigate charges, prepare cases for adjudication, transport juveniles to correction facilities, and supervise detention or handle aftercare services. They also work with community projects such as teenage hot lines, half-way houses, or alternative schools.
Career options include:
- Aftercare service counselor
- Children, youth, and family services counselor
- Children, youth, and family services administrator
- Juvenile corrections counselor
- Juvenile detention center administrator or officer
- Juvenile intake service worker
- Juvenile services administrator
- Probation officer (juvenile: county, state,
- or federal)
- Teenage hotline program counselor
- Youth service bureau officer
PUBLIC, PRIVATE, OR CORPORATE SECURITY
Can involve loss prevention in a retail store, investigating employee theft, providing plant security through patrol, securing buildings, electronic surveillance, providing personal protection as a bodyguard for corporate executives, politicians, or entertainers, hotel, resort, cruise line, or casino security, transportation industry security at airports, security on train or bus lines, or security officer for any of the public utility companies.
Career opportunities include:
- Airport security officer
- Casino security, investigator or director
- Conrail railroad police or security
- Corporate security guard, investigator, or director
- Hospital security officer or director
- Loss prevention officer or director
- Personal executive protection agent
- Private agency security guard or director
- Public security officer (county, state, or federal)
- Public utilities security investigator or director
PLANNING AND RESEARCH
Involves such tasks as analyzing needs, evaluating programs, writing grants, preparing and analyzing statistical data for public information, building databases and doing crime-specific planning.
Career options include:
- Corrections planner
- Criminal justice doctoral study
- Criminal justice planner
- Criminal justice records specialist
- Criminal justice researcher
- Information systems specialist
- Juvenile services planner
- Police planner
- Public information officer
CRIMINAL JUSTICE EDUCATION
Requires qualified instructors in criminal justice academies, agency training programs, high school technical education programs, community colleges, and universities.
Career options include:
- College and university educators
- Correctional educators
- Criminal justice academy instructors
- High school technical education program teachers
- Junior college educators
- Juvenile school teachers
- Technical school educators
OTHER
- Alcohol and drug abuse program counselor
- Criminal justice training literature writer
- Crisis intervention center counselor
- Professional association administrator
- Suicide prevention center counselor
- Volunteer services administrator
- Writers and editors
