Law Enforcement
A Criminal Justice degree prepares you for a career in law enforcement or security. No matter where you work in law enforcement, you will need to be trained and retrained throughout your life, so that you can make split-second decisions in life-or-death situations. You will need to stay up to date in the complexities of criminal law, abnormal psychology, and technological advances to prevent and stop crimes. Whether in the spotlight of high-visibility crimes, or in the obscurity of minor infractions, you must document, collect, and preserve physical evidence.
If you enforce the law you must know how to process crime scenes containing numerous types of evidence -- blood, fingerprints, chemicals, glass, footprints, etc. Each has its own unique standards and requirements for admissibility. You will have to decide whether to freeze or dry or bag the evidence you collect. Your community will depend on you, not only to solve and stop violent crime, but also to lead the fight against burglaries, fraud, embezzlement, and shoplifting.
Security
If you plan a career in security, you will ally yourself with traditional police forces to prevent and detect the crimes of burglary, fraud, embezzlement, and shoplifting. In your work for a private security firm, you will also help agencies and businesses cope with employee dishonesty, workplace violence, and employer liability.