Summary of Reading/Writing in Criminal Justice

I found many different things while doing this project about writing in the field of criminal justice. In my interviews both of my interviewees told me that writing was extremely important if I wanted to pursue a career in criminal justice. The journal portion of the project showed me that there are many different types of writing in the field and that i should be prepared to read any type of writing. This project really opened my eyes about writing in the field because most people don't think of criminal justice as the kind of jobs where there is a lot of writing. Most people think its more about just chasing bad guys and doing the fun stuff they see on TV, but through this project I found that writing is one of the most important things in the field of criminal justice.

Website

For the website part of the project i went to the National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS). This site has one of hte biggest databases in the field of criminal justice and is great for professionals in the field to find information that is needed or even ask questions in the Q and A part of the site. I thought the website was a very good one and if I ever get a job in the field of criminal justice i will definitely consider visiting this site if i need to find any information i need involving my job.

The journals portion of this project were a lot like essays one and two in that it was more about how the journals were laid out and the type of writing than what was actually said in the article. For the journals I chose to look at The International Journal of Drug Policy and Police Quarterly. Police Quarterly is a much more average reader friendly journal while The International Journal of Drug Policy seemed to be written more for professionals in the field of criminal justice. I had the easiest time with this part of the project because there are a lot of different types of journals in criminal justice and they are all different from each other.

Interviews

For my interviews I interviewed Dan Braswell and John Sinsel. Braswell is a retired FBI agent and Sinsel is a professor at Diablo Valley College as well as a police officer in Concord, CA. I just used email for both of my interviews since i thought they would probably be short anyway and didnt want to waste their time or my time meeting up for a short interview. Both interviewees stressed the importance of writing in the field of criminal justice and gave a lot of insight about their jobs. Overall I learned a lot from these interviews and now I have a clearer view of what my career might be.

Career Center Visit

I went to the career center and they told me about my career and helped me find potential internships and jobs for the summers and when I get out of college. The career center also showed me how to do my resume and what to do when I interviewed people. They also told me how to set up appointments with counselors if needed.