“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.