Which degree???

[sanantone]

All I know is that there is a bunch of people in LinkedIn's criminal justice group who can't understand why they can't find jobs as investigators. First of all, they don't understand that crime scene investigators just document and collect evidence. They are not the detectives or other kinds of investigators interviewing witnesses and solving crimes. Some crime scene investigators have training in criminalistics, but there are usually separate groups of people doing the evidence collection and analysis. Some of them don't understand that they aren't qualified to work in a lab with just a criminal justice degree. They also don't know that most detectives have to start off as patrol officers. If they want to go directly into investigations, they need to apply for a federal law enforcement agency like the FBI and maybe some state agencies. I've lost count of how many times I've had to tell people that the FBI and CIA do not require or even prefer criminal justice degrees.

When someone says he or she wants to work in homeland security, I automatically know they have a lot of research to do. Saying that you want to work for homeland security means nothing. There are a lot of agencies that fall under the Department of Homeland Security. The jobs vary a lot: plain old physical security like TSA, processing immigration papers, law enforcement at the border or ports of entry, intelligence, and the Coast Guard. Most of the intelligence and operative jobs are not under the Department of Homeland Security. I also have explained many times that a degree in criminal justice or homeland security is not going to make one stand out for federal intelligence jobs. Those aren't even the preferred degrees for most of the positions.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that young people are influenced by television shows. While the television shows do give an unrealistic portrayal of law, medicine, and CSI, I don't blame them for young people not doing their research to find out what it takes to qualify for these jobs. There are way too many people who think they can go straight into law enforcement with a degree in CJ. Criminal justice degree programs are not a law enforcement academy. They think they are going to learn hands-on stuff and get bored when we start lecturing them on laws and criminological theories. Another very common misconception is that students think they NEED a degree in criminal justice in order to become police officers. A very small percentage of law enforcement agencies require a degree; and for those that do, a very, very small percentage will require a degree in CJ. Most will happily accept a degree in anything and will not give preference to CJ degrees. I have learned in the past few months that many people in the criminal justice field as either practitioners or educators are annoyed by shows like CSI and NCIS.