Criminal justice education, employment destinations, and graduate satisfaction.

• Jurisdiction: Australia
• Author: Wimshurst, Kerry
• Date: 01 August 2007

The article addresses the lack of sound empirical research both overseas and especially in Australia on the outcomes of criminal justice education. The very limited research on graduate outcomes is potentially problematic at a time when governments are increasingly calling for program accountability and evaluation in higher education. The article reports on an empirical study of one criminology/criminal justice program that investigated the employment destinations of graduates. Principal components analysis and regression analyses were used to explore graduate satisfaction with their degree. There was evidence that educational outcomes were important considerations when alumni evaluated their degree. However, findings indicated that satisfaction varied considerably between occupational groups and was influenced by employment experiences and perceived 'success' in the workforce. The article addresses various themes emerging from the findings and identifies the need for further research across other programs on the outcomes of criminal justice education and graduate destinations.

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Criminology and criminal justice represent a relatively new field of professional education in Australian universities. Among other things, these programs are designed to enhance employment opportunities in the criminal justice system. However, the boundaries of the criminal justice system are unclear and the components of the system diverse. These factors present a challenge for those designing criminal justice programs in higher education. To make matters more complicated, little is known about the employment destinations of criminal justice graduates and how they reach those destinations.

Research on graduate employment outcomes remains uncommon in Australia perhaps because of the recent origin of many criminal justice programs. Academic criminology programs still exist at some older universities, whereas criminal justice programs were usually established later in the 'new' universities which grew out of extensive institutional amalgamations of the late 1980s and early 1990s. However, even in the United States, which saw considerable growth in criminal justice education from the early 1970s, there remains uncertainty about the outcomes of such programs. Terry (1980) noted more than 25 years ago that criminal justice research had all but ignored the criminal justice student, while Henry and Hinkle (2001, p. xiii) 2 decades later noted that 'one of the major weaknesses of many criminal justice programs (was) the lack of attention they placed on outcome'. In both cases, commentators stressed that we should learn more about the employment and career outcomes of graduates, and how such outcomes were related to undergraduate education.

An understanding of the outcomes of criminal justice education and employment destinations is important for the broader field of criminology and its various audiences. Teachers and researchers benefit from a better understanding of the fit between the generation of professional knowledge and subsequent systems application by graduates. The disciplinary field of criminology is still professionalising and maturing in Australian universities and so it is important to examine the links between professional education and the ways graduates approach later challenges in the workplace. In this sense, understanding what graduates take from the university, and how they reflect on their education and employment, also assists criminologists in universities and justice agencies to reflect on their own research and teaching activities.

Given the paucity of empirical research on criminology/criminal justice education and graduate destinations, this article draws on data from a project that explored the employment outcomes of criminal justice graduates. We first summarise what is known about criminal justice education in Australia and overseas, and about the measurement of graduate satisfaction with their education. The article identifies components of graduate satisfaction with their program based on the ways graduates look back and evaluate their degree. The article then assesses employment outcomes and pathways into employment, and attempts to relate these outcomes to levels of graduate satisfaction (and dissatisfaction). In addition, the findings suggested broader contextual and structural themes which might also be usefully explored by others evaluating their own criminal justice programs. Indeed, an aim of the current article is to encourage further debate about the nature of criminal justice education and its outcomes. These issues are addressed later in the discussion section of the article. Finally, the article concludes with some remarks about areas for future research on criminal justice education.

Researching the Outcomes of Criminal Justice Education

While there have been a few Australian articles on aspects of criminology/criminal justice education (Israel, 1997; Wimshurst, Marchetti, & Allard, 2004), the limited published research to date on student expectations and graduate outcomes is North American. The US-based Journal of Criminal Justice Education was established in 1990 with the intention of showcasing best practice in criminal justice education and teaching criminology. Interestingly, these aims soon tended to translate into a focus mainly on program (disciplinary) content and teaching processes, educational politics, and to some extent on the careers of criminal justice educators themselves. In fact, a decade into publication the then editor noted that 'articles that examined the backgrounds and motivations of criminal justice students at all educational levels had been relatively uncommon' (Unnithan, 2001, pp. iii-iv). There was, he said, only very limited research on the career expectations of students or their employment destinations, and certainly not enough research-based information to permit educators to develop programs with great confidence. Since then, the literature in the field has remained patchy, particularly in terms of exploring program outcomes. Krimmel & Tartaro's (1999) study is often cited as a benchmark for research on student expectations. They investigated the employment aspirations of criminal justice undergraduates at 12 colleges and universities in the United States. Gender was identified as an important variable for analysis given the increasing entry of women into a previously male-dominated field. Women respondents emphasised their broad interest in the field compared with the more instrumentalist career concerns of male respondents. An earlier Canadian study (Buckley, 1986) had also identified gendered differences in graduate outcomes. In this case, while women expressed greater satisfaction with their jobs, they had been generally less satisfied than men with the preparation for employment offered by their university program, although reasons for dissatisfaction were not fully investigated in the study.

One area where there has been some ongoing attempt at 'outcomes' research over the past 30 years has investigated relationships between tertiary education and the enhancement of police professionalism and accountability (Baro & Burlingame, 1999; Carter, Sapp, & Stephens, 1989; Polk & Armstrong, 2001). Nevertheless, despite considerable research activity, these relationships remain unclear. Courtright & Mackey (2004) concluded that the 'jury was still out' in terms of whether university studies should be mandatory for all police officers, partly because there are still doubts about perceived benefits. On a related matter, Hensarling & Carmen (2002) found that there was still much uncertainty in the United States among both students and employers about what constituted the typical criminal justice degree. In the minds of many, criminal justice education remained synonymous with preparation for law enforcement. Clearly, however, criminal justice programs in the United States and Australia have developed professional and scholarly objectives across a much broader field (Dantzker, 1998; Durham, 1992; Mona, 1995).

If scholarly research on graduate satisfaction with the outcomes of criminology/criminal justice programs remains sparse, then we might consider the wider higher education literature on graduate and alumni satisfaction. Krahn & Silzer (1995) noted over a decade ago that graduand and alumni surveys were likely to become increasingly important in times of budgetary constraints, as institutions sought to improve their 'product' and demonstrate their accountability through the feedback provided by graduates. Evaluations in other disciplines attest to the usefulness of alumni surveys (Belcastro & Koeske 1996; Bristol 2002). Nevertheless, Pike (1993, p. 121) also argued strongly that institutional researchers concerned with measuring program quality need to be sensitive to the ways in which employment/career experiences after graduation were likely to influence alumni satisfaction with their undergraduate educational experiences.

Disentangling the relationships between educational experiences, employment outcomes, and graduate reflections on their degrees, remains a complex area of research. Johnston (1991), utilising a large UK sample across disciplines, claimed that there were two 'alternative pathways' to graduate satisfaction. One he called 'educational satisfaction' and the other 'instrumental satisfaction', the latter based on employment outcomes such as good salary and interesting work. Since then, much of the literature has accepted these two basic 'evaluation routes' and noted that when reflecting about their degrees many alumni probably use both modes of evaluative reflection to a greater or lesser extent. Australian research by Martin et al. (2000) indicated, however, that graduate evaluations of educational features, such as curriculum and staff attributes, still correlated (often strongly) with perceptions about how well they...