During my Criminal Law lecture today, one of my students asked me if it was possible to get a job in the Criminal Justice field if one had a criminal record. I told the student that most careers in Criminal Justice require a background check and licensing. As a result, a person cannot have a criminal record. The student told me that no one in Admissions told him this little bit of information and if he had known, he would have chose a different major.
What the hell is wrong with these admissions people? Don't they realize that they are setting the college up for some serious liability issues? Suppose a student gets a criminal justice degree, pays all that money in tuition and fees and cannot get a job because of a criminal record. That is pure negligence on the part of the school. It seems to me that the college has an ethical duty to inform students of the possibility of their past interfering with their future. But no, the admissions people only care about the numbers. Anything else is the faculty's problem.
So I guess I will fire off an email to the chair of the program and hope he will light a fire under the asses of the admissions folks. But it still pisses me off that my college spouts out all this crap about students acting in an ethical way when the people in charge cannot grasp the concept.
About Me
- Seeking Solace
- I am a college professor who is fumbling through the chaos of academia, rheumatoid arthritis, working on my PhD and just being a 40 something woman. I used to be a lawyer, which made me a snarky little person. I have a wonderful Husband and a German Shepherd named Junior. They help keep me sane.
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My Sister's Keeper
6 comments:
Wow -- I'd never considered that. There are several fields where a criminal record would be a problem... K-12 education and law enforcement among them. I'd bet it isn't standard practice for admissions offices to ask that.
Maybe he could be a politician?
Sort of along the lines of what astroprof said, isn't it possible that people are getting degrees in the area but plan to work in something else? For instance politician (although that does bother me to know our leaders who make decisions that impact large portions of our lives can have a criminal background...ahem, Bush... but our law enforcers cannot). I get the point that people could be informed, but you're not suggesting that they shouldn't be accepted into a program or major because of a criminal record, or are you?
What bothers me is that even though someone has "paid their debt to society," they're still never forgiven. Once something like that is on your record, you can't ever get away from it. How many employers are going to hire someone with a rap sheet, even if it was stupid kid stuff 10 years ago?
I'm with Publius. Couldn't one argue that someone who had a run-in with the law but has changed his/her life be a better candidate for working in law enforcement? And is this an absolute restriction? Are there related things this student could do?
I wonder too if this is not incompetence in the advising area or some kind of privacy issue. Can advisors ask a student if he/she has a record?
I swear we teach at the same school! Out of my 30 students (all of whom are CJ majors), 5 of them have mentioned they have records. The admissions people are required to inform students that they will not be able to work in the CJ field if they have records, but the students all claim they were not told.
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