When someone considers what he or she wants to get a college degree in, there is always consideration for making a permanent life change. If you go to school for accounting, you will likely end up being an accountant. Software developers get degrees in information technology so that they can work on computers. Masters in criminal justice online students at the University of Cincinnati, however, get to graduate with a degree that they can use to do many different things. You can work in law enforcement, start a career in the courts, work with prisons and offender treatment facilities, become a private investigator, or even work with attorneys. There’s no one set and determined career path when you have a criminal justice degree at your disposal.
Rehabilitating Convicted Criminals
People tend to forget about criminals once they get caught and held responsible for their crimes. Very few offenders are going to be locked up for life, meaning that they will eventually come back out into society. If they aren’t rehabilitated, there is a strong likelihood that they’re just going to offend again. This is where online CJ degree holders can come in. Through probation, work release, and even parole, those convicted of crimes can re-enter society by proving that they can stay on the straight and narrow. If you are curious about how the criminal justice system works after conviction, you may want to work with probation and parole to help reform convicted criminals.
Working with Law Firms
A criminal justice degree can be the precursor to a law degree, or it might be useful to someone who decided to become a paralegal. As long as you understand criminal and civil procedure, you can work in a law firm in a helpful capacity. Legal secretaries who understand what police do after a driver is booked on suspicion of drunk driving charges can be very useful in private criminal attorney practices. What’s more is that completing a criminal justice degree will allow you to know if this is the career path you truly want to take.
Security and Prison Guards
For the most part, you only need a clean criminal background to work in a prison or as a security guard. If you can get through the background check, this is a good career to work within as there are few educational requirements. Then again, being promoted or even going into law enforcement does require you to have a formal education in criminal justice. So, you could actually become a correctional officer, go to school for criminal justice and then work your way up to an elevated position after a few years.
You don’t have to be just one thing if you decide to go to school for criminal justice. If you want to work in the field, interviewing suspects and collecting evidence then this is a good field to get into. Likewise, if you think that you do best while working with remorseful offenders one-on-one in a quiet office setting, going to school for a degree in criminal justice might also be a perfect fit.