The field of criminal justice offers aspiring candidates numerous career opportunities. One of these is becoming a criminal intelligence analyst. The main role of these professionals is to investigate crime data and provide essential crime activity information to police forces and security agencies. If you are planning to become a criminal intelligence analyst, you should know about the job responsibilities, educational qualification and training and what career prospects await you in this field. Read on to know all these about this criminal justice career and be prepared to compete.

Job Description
The main responsibility of criminal intelligence analysts is to provide critical information sources to the investigation departments, security agencies and police forces to help them identify the patterns of criminal activities. These agencies utilize the information to identify how criminal activities were conducted and locate individuals and networks that may be involved in various criminal activities. Criminals use different techniques and trends and security agencies attempt to identify these trends so that they can target involved individuals and criminal networks.

Not only, security agencies make an attempt to identify trends, but they also develop plan and take appropriate initiatives to check future offending. The typical job responsibilities of criminal analysts include the following.

Collecting essential criminal data from local, national and international computer systems
Maintaining and updating the database of intelligence records
Analyzing criminal data through special software programs
Preparing a record of crime hotspots, known as problem profiling
Observing suspect individuals and tracking their behavior
Using intelligence data to assist managers in tactical assessment
Recommending necessary changes for effective analysis of crime patterns

Depending on your job position level, you may also need to perform some additional responsibilities apart from those mentioned above. If you are employed as a senior analyst, your job description will also include counseling managers and assisting them in strategic assessment.

Educational Qualification & Training
College education is essential to get trained as a criminal intelligence analyst. A bachelor's degree in criminal intelligence or criminal analysis will enhance your career possibilities. Students can also kick start their career in this field with an associate degree or certification in criminal justice. Today, there are several professional schools and colleges across the United States offering candidates training programs and courses in criminal intelligence analysis. Through these courses, students will be trained in essential techniques used to analyze patterns of criminal activity. Training programs teach students in how to convert raw crime data into valid intelligence information. For producing reports, computer proficiency is a must for this career.

For more career information and training, candidates can also check the official website of the International Association of Crime Analysts (IACA).

Job Skills
Besides having a degree in criminal justice, criminal intelligence or a relevant field, candidates also need to posses some other essential skills to have a successful career. These include strong research skills, analytical skills, an eye for detail, excellent verbal and written communication skills, planning and organizational skills, strong team playing skills, capability to understand data security and the ability to meet the deadlines among others.

Employment Opportunities
Plenty of employment opportunities await candidates in this field. Criminal intelligence analysts can find employment opportunities with security agencies, investigation agencies, police forces and government departments. Good promotion opportunities are offered to professionals. With growing experience and advanced training, professionals can get upper level job positions.

Annual Salary
Salaries of criminal intelligence analysts vary depending on the type of employer, geographical location and years of experience. The annual salary of these professionals ranges between $30,000 and $70,000. With increasing experience and promotion to an upper level job position, professionals can earn a higher annual salary of $80,000 or more.

The job of private detectives is to detect unlawful acts in a number of cases including personal, financial and legal. These professionals offer multiple services. On the one hand, they help individuals, attorneys and business people by finding clues and solving mysteries to uncover the truths in different matters. On the other, they may also to provide protection to celebrities and corporate people. Many of the private detectives and investigators also work to solve crime mysteries related to computers like illegal downloading and identity theft among others. These detectives may also provide their assistance in cases like insurance claims, missing person, child custody, child protection, insurance fraud etc.

While uncovering facts in multiple cases, private detectives can choose from among many methods for finding clues and solving mysteries. Computers play a vital role in determining the facts of different matters. Detectives can easily investigate for deleted mails, documents and huge amount of data on computers. Investigation on computers and recovering essential data can help private detectives to collect extensive information which may include telephone numbers, club memberships, motor vehicle registrations, photographs etc.

Multiple kinds of surveillance or searches are also a part of the private detective's job. In course of their investigation, they can make telephone calls to the subject or can even pay a visit to the subject's house in search of clues to help them in investigation. In an order to collect more and more information to detect and uncover facts, private detectives can also interview people involved in a particular matter. Depending on the requirement of cases, private investigators can also go undercover and pretend to be someone else to keep a close watch on the subject of the suspected people. Detectives are well trained in searches and surveillance. They make use of advanced technology to help them with the detection of clues and investigating crimes.

While doing their investigation, private detectives and investigators are required to abide by the privacy laws set forth by the federal, state and local legislation to continue their investigation without any hassle or interruption. Evidences in any matter need be accumulated in such a way that they are well admissible in the court of law. Most of the private investigators choose to specialize in specific areas like intellectual property theft, documents piracy acts, prosecution action intelligence etc.

Education & Training of Private Detectives
Though many of the private detectives and investigators posses a college degree, no formal degree is necessarily needed to make a career in the field of private investigation. Many community colleges and universities provide degree programs in criminal justice. These degree programs can help candidates to kick start their career as private investigators or private detectives. Candidates can also join in the field of investigation and become private detectives directly after obtaining a bachelor's degree in criminal justice or an associate's degree in criminal justice or police science. A law degree or a master's degree in business administration may be essential to land jobs as corporate investigators.

Many colleges and universities also offer certificate courses in computer forensics for students. Courses in computer forensics give benefit paralegals and law enforcement officers who are involved in works of investigation. Private investigators learn most of their detecting and investigating skills on the job under the supervision of senior investigators. Knowledge of the latest investigation technology and methods and advanced software programs is very essential for making a successful career as private detectives or private investigators. For advancement of career, private detectives can also go for the Certified Legal Investigator designation awarded by the National Association of Legal Investigators.

Work Environment, Employment & Salary
Most of the private investigators and detectives perform their job outdoors doing physical surveillance and visiting subject's house and interviewing. There are others who spend most of their time in their offices performing computer searches and making telephone calls. Work environment for private detectives depends on the organization, business firms or other establishments they join. On the one hand, these detectives may be performing their investigation task in luxurious bed rooms. On the other, they may be busy doing their search and detection at seedy bars. They may also work at hotels, stores or other establishments.

Working hours for private detectives may be very irregular, as most of the subjects might not be available in normal working hours. Investigators may need to do their job in the evenings, in early mornings or on holidays. Employment opportunities are immense for detectives. Around 61,000 private investigators or detectives jobs will be added by the year 2016. The median annual salary of these professionals is $33,750.