The statistics say it all: According to the U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. residents over the age of 12 years were the victims of more than 23 million crimes in 2005. These crimes included property crimes, crimes of violence and personal thefts. In the same year, for every 1,000 people over the age of 12 years, there were three robberies, one sexual assault and one assault with injury. The importance of people with criminal justice and legal training to the rest of society is immeasurable; they are the people who protect others from crimes, investigate crimes and imprison criminals, and rehabilitate convicts. According to the Department of Justice, the federal government employed more than 100,000 full-time personnel to make arrests and carry firearms, and state and local agencies employed more than 1 million full-time personnel in 2004. That means that approximately 1.1 million men and women protected the more than 300 million people wh reside in the U.S.

People with criminal justice and legal degrees work in many different types of professions, including as campus police officers, prison guards, counselors, security officers, bodyguards, legal assistants, paralegals, lawyers and courtroom officers. They receive their training from schools that specialize in criminal justice and legal education. Many of those who work in criminal justice and legal professions receive their degrees online.

Many criminal justice professionals also have an easier time crossing over into other fields as well. One grief counselor, after suffering a major back injury, decided to change directions in his career. He eventually became one of his state's top back injury attorneys. He now has a reputation of being one of the best in the fields of back injury lawyers and back injuries.
There are thousands of sources that demonstrate the need for people with these degrees. Here are a few:

• According to Crime.org, someone is sexually assaulted every two minutes somewhere in the U.S.
• The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners reports that U.S. organizations lose an estimated 5 percent of annual revenue to fraud, which totals about $638 billion per year.
• According to the U.S. Department of Education, on college campuses in 2003 there were more than 8,000 aggravated assaults, 1,300 arson-related incidents, 42,000 burglaries, 3,700 forcible sexual offenses, 16,000 motor vehicle thefts and 45 murders.
• According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the majority of prison inmates, or more than 55,000 inmates, have received sentences of between 5 and 10 years. The most common offense is drug related, with weapons, explosives, and arson being the next most common offenses.
• The Federal Aviation Administration reports there were more than 130 'unruly passengers' who interfered with the duties of a flight crew member and therefore violated a federal law, which can result in up to $25,000 per violation and prosecution on a criminal level.
• There are nearly 600,000 registered sex offenders in the U.S. today, however, there are also as many as 100,000 offenders who can't be found and who aren't registered with the system, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's 2006 report.