Get your magnifying glasses ready and pack your bags for the best states for detectives and criminal investigators.
If you watched Law & Order your entire life, you probably ended up in a career path mirroring Detective Olivia Benson or wishing your life had. I think it’d mostly just be cool to have my life produced by Dick Wolf and always get to solve interesting problems. There’s a level of skill involved there that I just don’t think I have, though. Like, to be a detective I’d imagine you have to have patience and also not trip and fall at a crime scene. I would probably end up accidentally tampering with evidence because I slipped in something or touched something I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to touch. There’s curiosity and then there’s just stupidity, and unfortunately I think I lean toward the latter sometimes.
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There are a few key points about detectives and criminal investigators that I think we should get out of the way first. They both work according to regulations and prevent people from breaking the law while also crime solving. They’re often called agents or special agents, depending on the specifics of the job (like Special Agent Dana Scully, for example). They collect evidence from suspects in crimes and often have a specialization, such as homicide, drug trafficking, and fraud. The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts the number of detectives and criminal investigators will increase significantly in the near future. If you’re in this career path or thinking about it, you’ve chosen the right one, as there will be jobs for you in the future.
This can be a very dangerous job depending on the nature of the case, so those who are faint of heart should be wary. There are several requirements before you can even attempt to get out there, though. First, you need to get an education, preferably a bachelor’s or master’s degree. From there, you can gain experience in law enforcement and then advance your career. If you’re a police officer in the private sector, you might find our list of the 7 Jobs for Police Officers in the Private Sector useful and interesting.
In order to create this list, we took a look at some data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. We considered a few points, like salary. Of course, if we only take the salary we don’t get an accurate view of whether or not the state is good to live in. It doesn’t matter if the salary is high if the cost of living is also incredibly high. Therefore, we took a look at the cost of living index from MERIC. Those factors were averaged so we could get a good view of the information. Without further ado, let’s take a look at this list of the best states for detectives and criminal investigators.
