What you need to clarify for yourself is whether you want to study this (the “why”) or do the work (the “how”). There will be a difference in degrees here.

If you are interested in the academic study of crime and punishment for the purpose of understanding and possibly developing some new theories then you want to study sociology and specifically criminal justice or ‘crime and punishment’.

If you want to be in the heat with hands-on then you want to study criminal justice administration or public administration. This will teach more about the how than they why.

Be careful when looking at programs. Many programs titled ‘criminal justice’ are really ‘criminal justice administration’ or ‘police science’ which are not academic study (why) degrees but instead applied professional (how) degrees.

Professional sociologists often need an advanced degree in their work. A doctorate (PhD) might be expected for many research and teaching jobs. An administrator will also need an advanced degree with the MS in criminal justice administration or the MPA (master of public administration) being sufficient.

add: for the reply below and the one on top — we study this field because it needs to be studied to see if it does indeed work as a deterrent or if it needs to be changed and if so how. We have administrators with master’s degrees because running a prison is expensive. You don’t just hire any HS grad to run a prison that operates on a multi-million dollar budget. We study crime and criminals in the hope of understanding why they are the way they are — in that way we can try to prevent new criminals from developing and learn new ways to catch those that do develop.

To my way of thinking, this is a pretty important field of study. One that can make a real difference in real communities. But then, that’s just my opinion.

If they don’t do the crime, they won’t do the time!!!

The prison system should be a deterrent, improving the already 5*** conditions will not help this matter – infact, Im thinking of booking myself in for a few weeks – why not – Sky t.v., gourmet food, sitting on my backside all day, no bills to pay, gym, games room, free educational courses, no cleaning, no cooking, no responsibility – what a life of luxury!!!

Try hotel management.