Investigate Your Career in Criminal Justice

By Jeffrey Simons

Criminal justice in America has come a long way from the days of six-gun slinging sheriffs keeping the peace in frontier boomtowns with bullets and bluster. Nowadays, your local chief of police may have a Bachelors of Criminal Justice and a Masters in Public Policy.

Ever since 1916, when August Vollmer, the police chief of Berkeley, California established the first criminal justice program at UC Berkeley, the number of places you could get a degree has skyrocketed. By the 1970’s, there were 720 different criminology and criminal justice academic programs in the U.S. Many of those are online criminal justice degree programs at schools like Boston University, Penn State, and StraighterLine partners Thomas Edison State College and University of Phoenix.

One reason for the explosion in these programs is an increasing demand for capable people to fill criminal justice jobs. Between 2010 and 2020, the United States will need 58,700 new police officers and detectives, 7,100 private detectives and private investigators, and 161,200 social workers, many of whom will specialize in criminal justice.

That means that if you’re considering a career in criminal justice, you’ll have plenty of opportunity waiting for you. But before you take an introduction course to criminal justice course, you should review all the evidence and be sure of your facts. One way to start is with our new infographic, Criminal Justice Education: Past, Present & Future.

Criminal Justice Education: Past, Present & Future infographic

See if a career in criminal justice is right for you by learning the history and future of this profession in the "Criminal Justice Education: Past, Present and Future" Infographic.

You’ll uncover a few fun facts, dig up a bit of interesting history, analyze job projections, and assess the basic requirements that you’ll need for your career. For instance, which job is more likely to require a bachelor’s degree or a master’s degree: police officer or social worker? For the verdict, check out the infographic below.

And if you’re serious about investigating a career in criminal justice, you should download our free StraighterLine Guide to Careers in Criminal Justice.