An Exciting Career as a Criminologist

Criminology is the study of social crimes, criminals and criminal behavior, crime regulations and crime prevention methodology. A person professionally qualified in the subject of criminology is called a “Criminologist’.

A criminologist’s official responsibilities include functions such as study and analysis of various social crimes, criminal psychology, crime prevention methods of various investigative agencies, efficacy of official laws and crime prevention system to control the extent of social crimes and effective rehabilitation methods for punished criminals so that after their punishment period they can resume a normal life.

Criminology is rarely offered as a subject for under graduation courses and hence career aspirants in Criminology are required to have done their under graduation in any of the subjects such as sociology, psychology, legal sciences, or forensic sciences.

Candidates with relevant degree qualifications can pursue a professional criminology course at post graduate level and various specializations offered for post graduate level Criminology qualifications such as M.A in Criminology or M.Sc. in Criminology are victimology, abnormal psychology, corporate law, criminal psychology, juvenile justice, penology, criminal behaviour, crime prevention methodology, crime statistics, crime investigation etc.

After the successful completion of a professional course in Criminology, candidates can join as professors and lecturers of criminology in various academic institutions or as criminal lawyers in courts. They are largely recruited by various legal firms and investigative agencies as criminal law consultants and investigative officers.

Professional criminologists are in great demand in police departments, private security agencies and detective organizations. They are required by government police agencies as crime policy advisers, project heads of crime prevention projects, drug enforcement officers and crime intelligence analysts.

Criminologists also work as Criminology consultants where their major job profile is to assist high profile investigative agencies to develop sophisticated investigation methodology for criminal interrogation such as polygraph tests, brain mapping and fingerprinting technology. They can even join NGOs operating in the field of human rights as social workers.