To better prepare themselves for their careers, students who are enrolled in criminal justice masters degree programs can benefit from participating in projects that allow them to become involved in real-life criminal investigation scenarios. These opportunities allow future professionals to gain experience in their prospective work environment while they're still in school.
Three graduate students from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Department of Justice Sciences are currently participating in the school's Cold Case Project, which selects the top students from the school to work with local police departments on unsolved cases.
Working with the Homewood Police Department on an unsolved homicide case, the students will spend 10 months gathering information for the investigation. They organized, read and studied every report from the case, which included materials from police officers, detectives and forensics experts.
They also listened to hours of statements, and use skills learned in the classroom to analyze the recordings for behavioral patterns found in the witnesses and suspects.
Doug Finch, sergeant of the Homewood Police Department, stated that the students' efforts were "very helpful to me because we don't have the luxury of dwelling on just one case at a time." He added that "the work that the students did really helped us to see the case in a new way."
Employment of police officers and detectives is expected to grow by 10 percent in the next eight years, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports.
