What Can I Do With A Degree In Law and Society?
Become A Criminal Background Investigator
What is a Criminal Background Investigator?
BACKGROUND INVESTIGATORS have primary responsibility for conducting employment background screening, including criminal records research and employment and education verification. Investigators support national security and suitability investigations, performing background investigations on behalf of government agencies and businesses to ensure that candidates for sensitive positions possess appropriate qualifications.
Background Investigators conduct interviews, retrieve records, conduct research, and prepare reports in compliance with federal standards, laws, and agency regulations. Background Investigation careers require integrity, sound judgement, strong written communication skills, and the ability to interact successfully with a diverse population across all socioeconomic levels.
What Employers Look For In This Position
Many employers look for universal skills such as communication, cultural awareness, interpersonal skills, problem-solving, and the ability to work collaboratively. To be marketable in today’s workforce, persons should strengthen their abilities be flexible while adapting to change in a technological, diverse, and dynamic society. Skills such as resilience, problem solving, and adaptability are valuable at work and elsewhere.
How Law And Society Enhances Career Development
The Law and Society program provides students with essential preparation for successful, law-related careers and responsible citizenship. Academic excellence is achieved through a student-centered learning environment combining theoretical knowledge and practical application. Students are exposed to social science research about law and lawbreaking and develop the ability to think creatively and critically about human behavior, societal understandings of normality and deviance, and systemic problems in the American legal system and law enforcement. Law and Society majors are guided through a curriculum that prepares students to become conscientious, responsible change-agents in their future careers.
How Law And Society Prepares Students To Become A Criminal Background Investigator?
Students majoring in Law and Society are required to complete 33-34 credit hours of coursework in specified Sociology courses.
The degree focus consists of fifteen (15) required credit hours of coursework designed to build a foundation in sociological inquiry and quantitative methods, and nine (9) credit hours of Law and Process courses, and nine hours of sociology electives.
Targeted coursework for a Criminal Background Investigator
- SOC 220 Social Problems
- SOC 324 Criminology
- SOC 328 Criminal Justice
- SOC 402 Sociological Theory
- SOC 326 Social Conflict and Criminal Justice
- SOC 352 Drug, Culture, and Society
- SOC 411 Social Inequality
- SOC 419 Sociology of Law
- SOC 426 Social Deviance and Control