Criminal Justice provides essential knowledge and skills for people working in the police, tribunals, courts, prisons, or other similar criminal justice system areas. This system is thoroughly connected to local laws and regulations, so it differs from one country to another.
Some of the topics you can expect to study during a Bachelor’s or Master’s in Criminal Justice are theories of crime, punishment and correction, crime analysis, legal reasoning, principles of investigation, criminal procedure, and values and ethics in the criminal justice process.
Criminal Justice professionals develop a thorough understanding of the foundational principles of justice and law enforcement systems. They know how these systems work from the perspective of both victims and convicts and understand the place and challenges of justice systems in modern societies.
Successful Criminal Justice experts master skills like advanced research, high attention to detail, ethical decision making, active listening, public speaking, and critical thinking.
After graduating with a Criminal Justice degree, you can find work in 3 different areas. The first area is law enforcement, with jobs like police officer, federal agent, or detective. The second one is court systems, with jobs like district attorney or federal defender. And the last area is correction, with jobs like correctional officer, rehabilitation specialist, or parole officer.
You should know that Criminal Justice is neither Criminology, which seeks to understand criminal behaviour and why crimes happen, nor is it Criminal Law, which deals with the legal ramifications of crime such as laws that have been broken, consequences, punishments for offenders, etc.
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