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First of all, get a different degree than a Bachelor in Criminal Justice. What they teach you at the academy will be different than what you learned in 4 years in CJ in college. It won't give you that much of a leg up over others. (different case if it is a Masters) The world is not only CJ. Further, if you decide that police work is not your thing, having a different degree will give you something to fall back on.
HOWEVER, take a look at where you might want to work, check out their departments, and see if they want a CJ degree.
Is police work a good thing to get into? One thing you must keep in mind that you will be in a job where it seems that everyone will be second guessing your decisions, many people will act like they know your job better than you do, and you could be axed on the basis of public opinion alone. The people you work with may not be the creme of the crop, there because of their merits, but perhaps hired because someone else decided they needed more diversity in the department regardless of qualifications. Your life could be put at risk because some accountant decided that it was more cost effective to put only one officer in a car than two. A case that you busted your back on may never go to trial because the prosecutor decides that he doesn't have a 100% assured "kill"....and he wants a perfect record when he moves on.
And so forth and so on. It is a world where it seems a lot is beyond your control.
If you do decide to go forward, then be ready for a long hiring process. An applications that is pages long and asks you incredible detail of anything you have ever done in your life. Interviews, psych exams, lie detectors. Isolated bad things, like smoking a joint here or there may not eliminate you; they are looking for patterns. Do not lie on your application; they will find out and if they do find out you have lied, they will terminate you on the spot without a blink.
The best bet is someone who will hire you, pay you, and pay for you to go to whatever academy they use. But not all are like that. Some academies you have to pay for, some you have to go to before they hire you, etc..
When you do get your badge, you are looking at a year of probation where they can terminate you without reason. After a year, you are protected by the union, but in that year, you better be the best, spitest, shinest, on time, never a thing wrong you officer they have.
Over time, you will probably find that your only friends are other cops. That other people just don't understand your world. That a few years at the most after doing police work, you will want to be carrying a gun all the time. Further, police work does tend to change the outlook of people to where they might see only cops as the good and everyone else is bad. They are all guilty of something.
It's not like how they show it on TV.
Last edited by TamaraSavannah; 08-08-2014 at 12:29 AM..
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