Investigate criminal justice at Lakeland Community College. Visit us at [ Ссылка ]

Criminal justice encompasses areas including law enforcement or policing, the court system and the corrections system at the federal, state and local levels of government. Lakeland’s Criminal Justice program is designed to prepare you with the skills, knowledge and abilities necessary to pursue careers or professional development in criminal justice. All of our faculty are current or former criminal justice practitioners in their respective fields.

And that benefits the students because they bring in real world problems - current issues into the classroom. And here at Lakeland you're not going to just be sitting, listening to a lecture. You're going to be doing things. You're going to be learning by doing.

Some of the things that I do in my classroom is I show real life cases that I've worked. I have the students work through those cases and try to solve that case. You're going to learn how to fingerprint. You're going to learn how to cast footwear impressions. You're going to learn how to conduct a homicide investigation from the initial crime scene all the way until the arrest of the offender. You're going to do all those practical things which is going to prepare you for the real world.

There are actual skills I've picked up from these classes, such as the interview and interrogation class or the crisis intervention class. I learned skills that I apply to the street when talking to mentally ill people or handicapped people. Crisis intervention has helped immensely. But some of the other classes such as current issues in criminal justice and stuff like that, doesn't necessarily provide you with direct skills that you can take onto the field, but it gives you a different way of thinking things and it kind of creates you to be more open minded. And say I'm investigating this crime, but is there a different way I should be looking at this.

Once you finish your associate’s degree here at Lakeland, there's two possibilities. One is you go directly to the police academy. The other opportunity is you can go to the Holden University Center where you can obtain your bachelor’s degree and also your master’s degree.

My plans next is to go over across the street to the Holden Center to get my bachelor's from Youngstown and Lakeland and Youngstown have partnered where you can do three years here and then just one year at the Holden Center at Youngstown's price. So I've done my three years here so I'll just have a year over at the Holden Center to get my bachelor's.

I feel so comfortable that when I start the police academy I don't think it will be a hard endeavor for me.

I get phone calls every semester from agencies looking for Lakeland graduates because they know they're well prepared.

What you learn here at Lakeland is going to help you in your job and you'll be like oh yeah, I remember we talked about that in class. So, it's very much appropriate for right now, to get into the field that you need to go into.

Employment opportunities are excellent and are expected to grow well into the future.

We're always going to need people employed in the criminal justice system.

And it's not only in police work it's also in the court system and it's in corrections. You have opportunities to be bailiffs. You can be a probation officer. You can be a parole officer. You can work with victims and be a victim's advocate. So, there's many opportunities out there other than just working as a patrol officer.

Any field in public service because the criminal justice degree isn't just about teaching you to be a police officer. That's what we have our police academies for. But it teaches you different ways of thinking and how to serve the community and there's so many other community service and government jobs out there that isn't just law enforcement but directed at helping people as a whole.

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