The other day my parents asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up. I either want to be a CSI or a police officer or something to do with crime and mystery. What is a good paying job that has mystery and crime? How do I start practicing to get ready for it? What collage do I need to go to to get a degree in it? Oh one more thing I really want to start getting into it so I can get ready. I know I'm young but I just would like to do something about my calling. I am really into mystery problems and ghosts stuff and I like talking to them and 'playing' with them. I don't know just please help me! I live in Jacksonville, Florida I am 13 and go to a catholic school. Please help me, GOD BLESS!

Read books about how the mind works (especially a criminal mind). Take psychology courses in high school and college. Read true-life crime books (364.1523 at the public library). In Cold Blood by Truman Capote is a classic to read first. Read Ann Rule's The Stranger Beside Me (about Ted Bundy, a serial killer who was a just an ordinary nice guy). Many of the books in that library call number also deal with police procedurals, psyching out each crime scene. There are many fiction books that might interest you, including Jeffery Deaver's The Bone Collector that gets into lots of crime scene stuff including "walking the grid." And there are a number of non-fiction books about crime scenes, police procedurals, and rotting bodies and the stages of bugs that infest them (to show how long the body had been dead), etc. I can give you titles, or ask a reference librarian.

The other day my parents asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up. I either want to be a CSI or a police officer or some thing to do with crime and mystery. What is a good paying job that has mystery and crime? How do I start practicing to get ready for it? What collage do I need to go to to get a degree in it? Oh one more thing I really want to start getting into it so I can get ready. I know im young but I just would like to do something about my calling. I am really into mystery problems and ghosts stuff and I like talking to them and 'playing' with them. I dont know just please help me! I live in Jacksonville, Florida I am 13 and go to a catholic school. Please help me, GOD BLESS!


We have a former Police Officer who posts here - I'm sure he will have his own view of this.

I'm an investigator, primarily work for law firms on all sorts of cases. Previously I worked for an enforcement branch of the US Government.

If you talk to and play with ghosts there is no room for you in the enforcement business. It's about what you can touch and feel and PROVE, not about what voices tell you. I'm not saying good instincts, playing hunches, isn't important. I am saying that talking to/playing with ghosts is a totally different thing. If this is your interest fine tune your abilities and become a psychic.

I don't know exactly what being "into mysteries" involves. Do you true crime books and stories. Do you watch TV "real crime" shows (not CSI, not Law and Order)? Where do go to get a degree in "it" depends on what you want to do/be. Obviously Criminal Justice, but many of those programs are (literally) jokes and totally useless unless you want to be an unarmed security guard. College is important. I also went to law school.

In some areas Police are fairly well paid, not so much in other areas of the Country. Depends on where and the size of the Police Force. I made good money with the Government, but I travelled a LOT. Same with Police - long, long hours PLUS Court appearances.

Unfortunately, there's no "practicing" at 13 - unless there's a career day at your school or Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts or something similar.

I prefer investigating over enforcement because I like digging out details. Sure, crime scene investigators make fairly good money, but there is no such thing in lots of places.

If I were you I'd make sure my grades are good enough to get into a GOOD college, and I'd start to look at which area or areas interest you.

And, again, if you are talking to and playing with ghosts this is NOT the field for you.

Why did you mention Catholic school?

CSIs are all different. Some are chemists, some are biologists, some take pictures and videos, some are really good at taking notes and being organized, bagging evidence and tagging everything. The more specialized the job, the more likely you are to get a job, like the ones requiring advanced degrees in the sciences.
'Getting ready' at 13 means getting good grades in everything. Believe it or not, reading, writing, and arithmetic all are needed. Even typing fast. A tired cop who can't go home because he has to type up his notes is even more tired when he types slowly.
If you want to start as a cop and take CSI courses at night later on, you can look at the nearest police academy to you, and ask any policeman or woman you see or at your local station house.
Mysteries, ghosts - maybe what you are is sensitive to everything around you, and extra aware. That makes for a good investigator, noticing every little detail.

Mysteries, ghosts - maybe what you are is sensitive to everything around you, and extra aware. That makes for a good investigator, noticing every little detail.


Love the answer, Joy (which I've condensed) but the "ghost" playing/seeing is going to be a problem. I don't want to work a case when the person next to me is dealing with spirits.

Certain good intuition is important, being sensitive to details - but the whole ghost thing? No way would this person even get hired. Police Departments are approached by people with "psychic powers" all the time - occasionally (probably 1 in 10,000) get some details right. My favorite are the people who "see" a body near water. The body is found in the middle of a field. Whoops - maybe it was raining when the body was dumped.

The end.

Hello, not sure if I am the person they were talking to, but I was a State police officer and worked in law enforcement for the Justice Department. ( now retired)

If you are public about your ghosts, you will not hold a job, and it will be used to discredit your testifying in court, So if you really want a job in police work, give up the ghosts, at least publicly and not let anyone know you believe in them.

Next forget anything you see on TV about the CSI shows, the lab techs do not go out into the field, they stay in the lab and just do test after test after test all day every day. Each has specific tests they run in larger labs. For example you may be doing dozens of drug tests every day on drugs, for several years until you transfer to another dept perhaps.

There are drug techs that do go and collect evidence at crime labs, but they do not carry guns and do not ever question witness. They merely collect evidence and follow the chain of custody.

An investigator will investigate, they sometimes collect own evidence, many departments don't have a crime scene unit but the officer or dect has to collect evidence and send to the crime lab.

The officer doing the investigation will not have days and days to work on one case, they may have a few hours at one crime scene before going to another. Often a investigator will have 100 or more open cases they are working at any one time. After they are not solved, most are not, they will be filed away as unknown or not solved or just in a open case file along with 10's of thousands of other open cases never solved.

Some police departments have a explorer or some children's group that meets, sort of like a scouting program, you may see if you location has one.

But at 13 you don't do anything,

You finish high school, go to college and take either crime lab or acconting or law enforcement normally. I said accounting yes, almost all FBI agents are either attorneys or accountants and many law enforcement want accountants as investigators since many crimes deal with bank or other money fraud.

Also it is seldom like TV, most stakeouts are just that, you watch and watch and nothing happens, you spend 8 to 10 hours in a car and nothing happens or if it does, you are just to watch and report you don't react.

I put my first badge on in @ 1979 ( give or take a year, I don't really remember any more)
And took off my last badge about 2006 after 25 years of various law enforcement.

Results
Most crimes are never solved
Domestic calls are often the worst, and they seldom testify against the other.
Most crimes that are solved are done in plea bargains and you never really go to court.
A officer seldom uses their weapon. I pulled my weapon 2 times in 25 years, fired it at one event, (drug raid gone bad). ** term pulled as in actually pointed it at someone, I had it out a few times doing a building search that has been robbed.

So first you need to find out what the job really is, start reading about what really happens.

Hello, not sure if I am the person they were talking to, but I was a State police officer and worked in law enforcement for the Justice Department. ( now retired).


You're the guy I was talking about.

And there are also investigators for child abuse, tax fraud, animal abuse, just about anything/everything. I remember the "old days" when all FBI agents had to be Attorneys.

- all good points, particularly the "ghost" angle.