by K. W. Callahan

Created on: January 19, 2009   Last Updated: April 22, 2012

The job outlook for the criminal justice field has never been better. The list of available positions can cover a broad spectrum and require employees from a variety of professional and educational backgrounds. From lawyers and paralegals working within the confines of a law office to police officers patrolling city streets, the available roles within the industry are almost unlimited. While a suffering economy can affect almost any sector of the workforce, careers within the criminal justice field remain resilient, even benefiting at times from tough economic conditions.

From travel to technology, hospitality to healthcare, within both the public and private sectors of nearly every industry, trained criminal justice professionals are in high demand. As advancements in technology continue to change the aspects of everyday life, they increase the opportunities for criminals to prey upon unsuspecting victims, thus creating new roles within the criminal justice field. No longer is the field limited to the stereotypical police officer walking the beat or private eye camped out inside his car. Now jobs include positions such as legal consultant, insurance investigator, forensic scientist, criminal pathologist, and a whole list of careers based around identity protection, fraud, and the security of online banking, company products, and copyrights.

Not only have the roles in the criminal justice field broadened, but the people filling those roles have changed as well. Available positions and the percentage of women filling them have skyrocketed over the last two decades. A study conducted by The Sentencing Project, a group advocating research and reform for women in the criminal justice system, illustrates just how important women's roles are becoming. The study finds that over a million women are now under supervision by the criminal justice system, and more than 200,000 are housed in state and federal prisons. This number has increased at a rate nearly double that of incarcerated men since 1985. This means that jobs for women within prisons as correctional officers and counselors, as well as probation officers and vocational teachers, will continue to be in high demand.

The outlook for nearly all careers in criminal justice for both sexes continues to be bright. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found that "Employment of private detectives and investigators is expected to grow 18 percent over the 2006-16 decade, faster than the average for all occupations." While some might argue that with a recession now swirling across the nation this statistic might be high, a recent article on Chicagotribune.com quoted Richard Rosenfeld, a University of Missouri-St. Louis criminology professor as stating that "crime rates across the country have gone up in every recession since the 1950s" This fact only supports the prospect that the market for jobs within the criminal justice field will continue to remain healthy, even in a poor economy.

Sources:

The Sentencing Project. "Women in the Criminal Justice System." [Online] May 2007. http:www.sentencingproject.org/Admin/Documents/Publi cations/womenincj_total.pdf.

Angela Rozas. "Making sense of crime during a recession isn't so clear-cut." [Online] Dec. 3, 2008. http://www.chicagotribune.com/2008/dec/08/local/chi- crime-statistics-column-03-dec03.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. "Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2008-09 Edition Private Detectives and Investigators." [Online] http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/print.pl/oco/ocos157.htm .

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