The criminal justice system has a vast amount of different jobs and careers that I could pursue. I am sure that everyone has some knowledge of what police do and what the FBI does, but there are also jobs that deal with fraud, guns, border patrol, natural resources. All of these jobs deal with some kind of potential crime that has to be either deterred or dealt with. The easiest way to explain my field is to talk about the people that the public interacts with the most, and that is police officers.
Police officers jobs are a conglomeration of almost all criminal justice fields, because they deal with drugs, illegal firearms, alcohol, prostitution, and of course traffic violations. The point is that police officers are out there to deter crime, catch the people that break the law and serve the general public. They do this because they are interested in the publics safety, which their motto best describes "Protect and to Serve". Especially as more studies are done about crime control and what works and what doesn't, police are being more proactive in the field and there is less of just waiting for 911 calls to come in so they have something to do.
People think sometimes that this is not always the case and police are just a bunch of party poopers when they break up a party and hand out minors, but really they just want to make sure people are ok and not getting hurt and cooperating with the police so they may not get minors, and this is coming from a conversation I had with a Fargo Police officer.
Another phrase that you might have heard that goes along with police is that that they "Clean up the street" though this phrase is meant to mean that they clean the streets of crime, policemen actually do clean up the streets. Order maintenance is part of law enforcement which involves making sure stores keep their store front clean or getting rid of a bunch of old tires in an alley that gangs are hanging around and in a rare case even having the city bulldoze a house that is vacant and is attracting homeless people.
These are just a few examples of what police officers do. For the most part officers share the same values, keep the community and their families safe, make a difference, and help people when they need it, what ever the situation. Having these values I believe is a must if someone wanted to in law enforcement because these values are an everyday aspect of law enforcement.
