How To Become A Criminal Justice Internship: What It Is and Career Path

What is a criminal justice internship and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

Someone who pursues a criminal justice degree is adamant about how to change the criminal justice system, and they wish to partner alongside offenders to assist them with recovery. Also, students in this particular degree program have an urge to expand the strategies for mitigating violence. There are numerous programs involved in the process, such as co-curricular, extracurricular, internships, mentorships, and even work.

Although you may not be recreating scenes from Law & Order or CSI, criminal justice internships call for students to be activists, victim support providers, or group liaisons. Whatever your job, you'll find positions at the city, state, and federal levels. Criminal justice interns, for example, can become corporate security staff, observing and recording existing business practices. With a background in information management or computer science, you'll be responsible for cybersecurity and assist project managers with paperwork.

Most interns are current college students pursuing a criminal justice degree. These internships can either be voluntary or paid. Most of these give academic credits to those eligible.

ScoreCriminal Justice InternshipUS Average

Salary

2.4

Avg. Salary $31,029

Avg. Salary $59,228

Diversity

4.2

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 1.19%

Asian 4.08%

Black or African American 11.30%

Hispanic or Latino 20.46%

Unknown 4.42%

White 58.55%

Gender

female 61.78%

male 38.22%

Age - 51

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 51

Stress level

7.8

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

6.3

Complexity level is intermediate

7 - challenging

Work life balance

6.7

Work life balance is good

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a criminal justice internship

Explore criminal justice internship education requirements

Most common criminal justice internship degrees

Bachelor's

64.3 %

Associate

18.7 %

Doctorate

6.3 %

Start to develop specific criminal justice internship skills

Skills	Percentages
Criminal Justice	17.06%
Legal Research	8.74%
Pre-Trial Conferences	5.96%
Court Procedures	5.47%
Intake Interviews	4.89%

Complete relevant criminal justice internship training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 6-12 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New criminal justice interns learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a criminal justice internship based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real criminal justice internship resumes.

Research criminal justice internship duties and responsibilities

Receive multiple letters of commendation for effective investigations that lead to successful prosecutions.
Create PowerPoint presentation with charts, and graphs.
Direct DEA undercover narcotic enforcement operations.
Gather reliable information to include into an academic PowerPoint.

Prepare your criminal justice internship resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your criminal justice internship resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a criminal justice internship resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable criminal justice internship resume templates

Build a professional criminal justice internship resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your criminal justice internship resume.