Career Opportunities in Criminal Justice

Majoring in criminal justice opens the door to a wide variety of career opportunities in both the public and private sectors. In addition to the well-known and rewarding careers of law enforcement and corrections, students majoring in criminal justice typically pursue challenging careers in the fields of: offender supervision, research and policy analysis, court administration, the legal profession, insurance investigation, teaching, corporate security, and military policing and intelligence. Many of the public service careers offer the added benefit of being more recession-proof than jobs in private industry. NMU’s Introduction to Criminal Justice class is designed to make students fully aware of the different career opportunities in criminal justice for our majors.

Listed below are some of the challenging career categories, primary and support staff opportunities, and examples of different employers within these fields that hire criminal justice majors.

Correctional Services

A large number of people are involved in the supervision, rehabilitation and treatment of offenders during and after they become involved in the criminal justice system.

Corrections

A wide variety of opportunities exist in more than 5, 700 federal, state and county facilities ranging from the “Super Max” prisons, such as Pelican Bay, to local community-based correctional institutions. Within the corrections field there are positions as agency administrators, correctional officers and a variety of support staff opportunities in: counseling, teaching, job training, records management and human resources management.

Law Enforcement

There are over 20, 000 federal, state and local law enforcement agencies in the United States employing over 550, 000 people. These include: city and suburban police departments, state police departments, county sheriffs offices and federal law enforcement agencies.

In addition to sworn officers, careers in law enforcement also include extensive support staff positions including crime data analyst, evidence technician, fingerprint examiner, firearms instructor, K-9 specialist, pilot, photographer, ballistics expert, crime scene analyst, records manager, public relations officer, human resource officer and crime mapping specialist.

Select agencies include:

• FBI, DEA, IRS, INS, SEC, OSHA, EPA
• Inspector Generals
• Bureau of Land Management
• U.S. Customs Service
• Secret Service
• Chicago Police Department
• Marquette County Sheriff
• Michigan Department of Natural Resources
• Michigan State Police

Research and Policy Analysis

Most criminal justice agencies conduct research on the effectiveness of their crime control programs. There are also many federal and state agencies dedicated to criminal justice program evaluation and policy analysis.

Opportunities exist in: program evaluation, intelligence analysis, policy development, grant writing, geographical information systems, and statistical analysis and research.