300 students attend session at MSSU’s justice center

September 24, 2008 08:57 pm

— By Wally Kennedy
wkennedy@joplinglobe.com
At age 17, Hayden Miller is on a fast track for a career in law enforcement.
“I have always known that I wanted to be in law enforcement when I graduate,’’ said the senior from Springdale (Ark.) High School.
“Enrolling in the Law & Public Safety Academy at my high school was a nice opportunity to get some advancement,” he said. “This career fair will give me even more advancement.’’
Miller, now in the third year of his school’s law academy, was among more than 300 students who attended a career fair and open house Wednesday at the Mills Anderson Justice Center at Missouri Southern State University in Joplin.
“Ever since 9-11, I have had a sense that I wanted to do something for my country,’’ he said.
Officer Mike Hignite, with the Springdale Police Department, is the resource officer for the school’s academy. He said 90 students traveled from Springdale for their first visit to Southern’s annual criminal-justice fair.
“Our program is now in its seventh year and many of our graduates are just now getting old enough — age 21 — to get jobs in law enforcement,’’ he said. “One of our graduates is a student in the program here (MSSU).’’
“The Springdale Police Department and the high school formed this partnership so that law-enforcement employees could get into the work force quicker. The department recognized it was hard to get good, qualified applicants.’’
Hignite said popular television shows, such as “Law & Order’’ and “CSI Miami’’ have triggered student interest in law enforcement. “But we dispel a lot of the glamour when they get into our program. We stress community service,’’ he said.
The open house featured a tour of the center, including demonstrations in the crime-scene investigation room, firing range, computerized shooting systems and other technology. Students also got to meet the center’s faculty.
The organizers were expecting about 230 students to attend. More than 300 showed up.
Richard Spencer, assistant professor of criminal justice at MSSU, said, “We have had a great turnout. It was considerably more than we expected. We have students from most every high school in the area and all four states.’’
Spencer said the popularity of crime-related TV shows has helped particular majors.
“They have helped get the message out that these jobs exist,’’ he said. “They see CSI and say: ‘I want to do that.’ But they learn that the real world is not exactly like it is on TV.’’
Spencer said forensic technology is evolving as rapidly as medical technology. The search for missing tot Caylee Anthony, a featured investigation on the television show “Nancy Grace,’’ recently used new technology developed at the University of Tennessee that showed something dead had been in the trunk of the car driven by the girl’s mother, Casey Anthony. The mother said a dead squirrel had been in the trunk.
“That technology did not exist a few months ago and now it’s being used in this case,’’ he said. “That’s how fast things are changing.’’
Spencer said when he was enrolled in the program at Southern in the mid-1980s about 95 percent of the students were male.
“What I noticed today with these students is that about 60 percent of them are male and 40 percent are female,” Spencer said. “That’s a big change since the 1980s.’’
Women might not be going directly into law enforcement as a career, but into fields that are connected to it, such as juvenile-justice, crime-scene investigation and probation programs, he said.


Recent graduates
Last year, 94 students graduated from the criminal-justice program at MSSU with bachelor of science degrees and 47 students earned associate degrees in law enforcement.

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