S1: E22 | Serve and Protect: Careers in Criminal Justice

In this episode of Gator Bites, we take a closer look at the Criminal Justice program at Lamar State College Orange. Host Daniel McLemore sits down with Program Director Hallie Gates, law enforcement officer and faculty member Antonio Mitchell, and President Emeritus Dr. Tom Johnson to discuss the many career paths within criminal justice. From forensic science and law enforcement to courtroom procedures and investigative work, the conversation explores how LSCO is preparing students for careers dedicated to service, ethics, and protecting their communities. 

About Lamar State College Orange:
Lamar State College Orange (LSCO) is a two-year, state-supported institution located on the banks of the Sabine River in Orange, Texas. As part of the Texas State University System, LSCO is committed to transforming lives and communities through the continual pursuit of academic, professional, and personal excellence. Serving more than 5,500 students, the College offers associate degrees and certificates in academic, technical, and workforce fields, providing new and unique opportunities for growth and success. With a focus on accessibility, affordability, and innovation, LSCO serves a diverse student population, including a high percentage of first-generation college students. Through strong community partnerships, dedicated faculty and staff, and innovative student support services, LSCO is the bridge connecting those it serves to a bright, Orange future.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:07

Hello everyone and welcome back to Gator Bike, the official podcast of Lamar State College Orange, where we interview faculty, staff, and students to give the community an inside look into life here at LSCO. Today we're talking with the Criminal Justice Program at Lamar State College Orange. This is a field that plays a critical role in protecting our communities and upholding the rule of law. So we're joined by members of our criminal justice program. That's Director Hallie Gates, faculty and current law enforcement officer Antonio Mitchell, as well as President Emeritus Dr. Tom Johnson, who helped build this program and brings decades of experience in law enforcement and higher education. So we'll be discussing careers in criminal justice, the future of the field, and then how LSEO is preparing students for meaningful work in this profession. So if we can, real quick, let's just go around the table. Introduce yourself.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

Hi, my name is Hallie Gates. I am over the criminal justice program at Lamar State College Orange, and I teach several of the classes.

SPEAKER_02 1:05

Okay. How are you doing? My name is Antonio Mitch. I'm also with the criminal justice program as well. Okay. And then Dr. Johnson.

SPEAKER_01 1:12

Yeah, Tom Johnson, uh former president of Lamar State College Orange and uh retired uh law enforcement officer.

SPEAKER_03 1:21

And then we have Dr. Johnson calling in on a phone for us, too. So uh you the you you may hear him differently, but he's uh he's he's over on a golf course and and having fun, and we get to pull him in every now and then for things like this. So thank you for joining us, Dr. Johnson.

SPEAKER_01 1:34

Retirement is nice.

SPEAKER_03 1:37

You're making us a dream. So to get us started, can you give our listeners a quick overview of the criminal justice program here at Lamar State College Orange?

SPEAKER_00 1:47

Sure. Yes. Um we have a fantastic program here at Lamar State College Orange. We have an associate's degree in criminal justice that we offer. We also have a um a brand new associate of applied science degree, and this is gonna be in the criminal and forensic science program. Um and we also have several certificate programs. Um, we have a criminal justice certificate that takes about a year for students to get through. Um, we have a law enforcement certificate. So if you are specifically interested in being a police officer and going into law enforcement, that certificate would be a great option for you. And then we also have a new forensic science certificate. And all of those certificates take about a year to get through. And then our associate's degrees take about two years to get through. And you're gonna be taking a lot of the similar classes between those two degrees. So it's great because a lot of them are stackable. So if you are working towards your certificate, you can also be working through and towards your associate's degree at the same time. Very beneficial for the students.

SPEAKER_03 2:58

Awesome.

SPEAKER_02 2:59

What uh what courses do you guys teach? So I teach criminalistics one and uh criminalistics two as well. Okay. We're just getting those kicked off. Um, I was able to actually build those classes out. So very new.

SPEAKER_03 3:11

So it's uh exciting. It's a little bit different stepping into the education side from the the law enforcement side? Absolutely. Way more um have to have way more patience on this side. Absolutely. Dr. Johnson, you did that. So do you have any uh tips for Tony on on his his jump into education?

SPEAKER_01 3:28

Enjoy the ride. I have.

SPEAKER_02 3:32

It's been different every day too.

SPEAKER_03 3:33

So so what uh what makes this feel interesting and exciting to be a part of? And we'll start with you, Dr. Johnson.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

Yeah, well, it's a game changer. Uh I've always been inclined my entire lifetime to to serve the public. And uh when I was went to a two-year school, I was first generation to go to college in my family. And uh very quickly I started seeing that public service is what I wanted to do. And so I went to Sam Houston State University and I got a degree in criminology uh corrections and then a minor in sociology and went to work for the Houston Police Department because uh I wanted to serve the public, I wanted to uh to help people, and I felt for me that was the best way to do it because I'm a very expressive person. I don't really do well in offices, and so it just seemed like that would be a good career. And I thank God every day that I did.

SPEAKER_03 4:27

That's awesome. What about you, too?

SPEAKER_00 4:30

Well, um, it's exciting um because there's there's a lot of growth that has happened in the criminal justice field um in recent years. There's been a lot of um new technology, so you get to keep up with all of that in the current events, and we discuss things like that in our classes. Um, so not only are we teaching so much information about law enforcement corrections in courts, but we're also keeping up with modern day practitioners, people that are in the field that are doing this work and um the news articles and the things that are coming out. And I think that's a really it's really great that we have someone like Tony that's coming in to teach because he's an adjunct for us, but he's also still in the field. Um, so it's exciting to kind of, you know, look at his um performance and like his current job, and he can bring that that specialty into the classroom and not only look at our textbooks and that information, but also currently what he is dealing with in his current job. So that's super exciting. We get to merge those two worlds.

SPEAKER_03 5:40

Yeah, that's awesome. So is there a is there a moment maybe in your career that you kind of really feel like shaped what you view criminal justice as? Um anything that you could you could point to to say, man, that that's what really set it in stolen for me.

SPEAKER_02 5:55

Oh yes, for me, it was more so bridging, like you said, bridging that gap. Um the real life moment happened with me um when I was able to get into the book. I didn't I never foreseen myself getting a degree, getting an education. I just wanted to get a job and make a little money, you know? And once I started in the field and I started seeing the different uh sides of it, kind of opened my eyes to, okay, I can develop something, I can actually learn this. Uh also applying the real role aspect to the textbook as well. That kind of shaped and opened my eyes to the whole criminal justice field as a whole.

SPEAKER_03 6:27

Yeah, and what about you, Dr. Johnson? Uh I mean your your time in the the Houston Police Department and then also the the police academy, I feel like gives you pretty pretty good perspective there.

SPEAKER_01 6:37

Yeah, I guess I did uh a little over 32 years, 20 with Houston Police Department. I had seven assignments there. And then uh when I went to Tyler Junior College, it's a rather large school, it has 12,000 students. So we had a 21-man police department there full-time, as well as the I was over uh all public safety, which was police, fire, EMS, as well as the academic programs, as well as the police department. And you know what I enjoyed about it was there's just so much diversification in what we did every single day. I can't remember two days being alike, and it's wonderful. But uh I think the thing one of the most things I'm proud of is bringing uh Hallie to Lamar State College Orange because she has that great perspective. Her father is a is a legend in law enforcement. So she's grown up with this, but yet she recognizes what do we need to do to make it relevant for today? And that's that's so important. It's what do we need to do to make it relevant today, particularly for students who may be on the borderline. Is this something I want to do? And so I'm so proud of where LSCO is going with it. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 7:42

Yeah, absolutely. So what uh what do you believe are some of the biggest challenges facing the criminal justice system today? And we'll we'll maybe start with you, Hallie.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

You know, um I think some of the challenges that we face um is is it could be public perception of like what we do in this field. Um, you know, we see a lot in the media, and there's a lot of challenges that law enforcement corrections and the courts are seeing right now. Um, so I think kind of getting that message out to the public that we are here to help as practitioners. I don't know one person in this field through the police officers that I know and probation officers, parole officers, and state troopers, um, those people that I know, I don't know one of them that is not in this job or in this career to not help people. Like all of them want to help. I think it's really important, and you've kind of seen in a lot of um law enforcement agencies and government agencies throughout, is they've been really paying attention to making sure that they're putting all of this good information that they're doing on social media and in the media. Um, because we see a lot of bad stuff. Um, so we have also seen a switch in making sure that these law enforcement departments have um, you know, like a PIO, a public information officer that's really focusing in on um, even if it's something that's negative that we're dealing with, like, you know, a law enforcement agency that is dealing with a homicide or something like that. Uh, it's really just to make sure we get out in the public and and set the facts straight, set the record straight, make sure that not only are we giving like adequate and like good information, but we're also highlighting all the great things that law enforcement does. So sometimes handling the public. What do you think, Tony?

SPEAKER_02 9:34

Yeah, I I also agree with that. Um, and with public perception, I think that hampers and hinders um retention. Getting people to come to this field. Um, this field is making more money than most people imagine. Uh used to be like, okay,$40,000 was a lot of money. But we got officers making extensive of$150,000,$160,000, regular patrol officers. Absolutely. So the money is there, is there to be made. But I think it's hindered by public perception. People perceive this to be a career where we only do small, small little tasks. And the real side of it is so technologically savvy. So much information goes into a day of a police officer. I think Dr. Junck's going to speak on that as well. I mean, it's a lot that goes into the education, the report writing, and all of that, what we offer here at uh Lamar State College of Arms.

SPEAKER_03 10:21

So yeah, so let's let's move into that. So, what what does it take for a person to go into this field? What what kind of person thrives?

SPEAKER_01 10:27

I will tell you. I in my view of 30-something years law enforcement and being involved in the fourth largest police department in the entire country, and and my my expansive time in it is I'm gonna tell you right now, it comes down to ethics. It's more important that you get the right people in that job because when you raise your hand in court, which is a very daunting thing, the public wants to believe you. You need to be able to be an ethical person who can tell the truth at all times. And that to me is you can learn skills, you can learn all that, but if you don't have a good background uh or grounded in ethics, uh you can run into trouble because our job is difficult. But people put us there because they trust us. That word trust is huge in criminal justice. And uh I can tell you, I never ever wanted to do anything to tarnish the badge that I wore. And uh one of the great things about law enforcement is we do so many different things. Uh it's it's really a cornucopia of what is it that you want to do? You want to be an investigator? Do you want to be on the SWAT team? Do you want to do this? Do you want that? The opportunity's there for whatever you your little niche is, is is there, but you should always remember you're there to serve the public, preserve, protect, and honor that badge.

SPEAKER_03 11:53

I love it. That's that's that's said I don't think I could say that. Very well. Yeah, very well said. Absolutely. So what you know, speaking towards that, what what really excites you most about the future uh of criminal justice?

SPEAKER_00 12:04

Um, well, I I love just meeting our students. Um, every time we get new students in a class, um, it's it's just so exciting to see their excitement. I mean, the the issues and the challenges ahead of them, um, they are resilient enough to move past those fears and they're just excited to learn the knowledge. Like they they are and their knowledge, the the things that they already know is extremely impressive. And so it's encouraging to see these students with their excitement come into this field knowing that it's a challenging field to get into, and they are pumped about it. So that part excites me a lot.

SPEAKER_02 12:46

Yeah. Um, for me, I um when I first hired in, you didn't see higher education in all in the law enforcement or even in firefighters. I think we had less than 1% of our department actually had degrees. Wow. Now I see with programs like Lamar State College Orange, we have more educated, more balanced people where they can also do the job, do the task, but also have the knowledge base to help others with that and help promote us and push us to the next uh phase. So I'm more excited about the platform we have, the educational platform we we're starting to see now. I think we're up to about roughly 10%, which is not a lot, but it's way more than that, less than 1% than it was when I first started. So seeing that knowledge base increase through uh my year, I've been there 21 years. So seeing it increase has been been great.

SPEAKER_03 13:31

Yeah, so it's building up that foundation absolutely a little higher, a little taller, right? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

You're having more and more law enforcement agencies requiring, you know, certain amount of college credit and hours to get those jobs. So it's encouraging because then for us, that that means more students are gonna come to us. Um and then like the promotional opportunities too that you have with a college degree, um, letting those law enforcement agencies let these people know about these opportunities. So that that encourages them to be in a college setting as well to get that knowledge that they need.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

Yeah, absolutely. I'm gonna jump right on there. I agree with Hallie and it just it's when I started with Houston Police Department in August of 1984, uh, you had to be 19 in a GED. That was it. And it's come so far since then. It's where do you want to go? The technology's there. It's it's because we had to we had to we had to bring in education, higher education, and those were some really, really uh positive steps to professionalize a service that for so long was just saw more or less as just a trade. But we're saw as professionals now because we worked for it. Uh we we've earned that right. And uh one of the last things I'll say is I was a young man when I was able to retire, which set me on my second part of life, which was law enforcement was great, but how do I how do I teach that? So, you know, I started a the working at the police or director of the police academy at a college, and I got to see these young people who are eager. And so it's just so exciting about the future because now we have so much electronic detail, we have all these different things that can help a police officer. And anyone that can tell you who's been a police officer, the opportunities now with DNA and all the rest of that is to solve crimes that when I started in 1984, they were unsolvable back then, but we held on to the evidence, and we're solving crimes from 40, 50 years ago, which is a miracle of the science, but it all comes back to one thing. Law enforcement is a great place to start, it's a great place to spend your career, and you'll never regret helping people.

SPEAKER_03 15:53

I don't know if there's a better sales pitch than that right there. 100% agree. So, for students that are curious about this field, what uh what can they expect to learn through this program? You know, we kind of talked a little bit about that, but you know, go back through some of the programs that we offer.

SPEAKER_00 16:06

Yeah. So um if they any any program that they end up going through with criminal justice in mind at LSEO, they're gonna learn about even it's if it's forensic science, uh criminal justice, or the law enforcement route, um, they're gonna be taking like intro to criminal justice. Um, and so that's kind of the first class that all of our students take. And that dives into everything. It's a very thorough class. We talk about law enforcement, courts, and corrections, and we break down everything that happens in those categories. Um, we also have several court-related classes, fundamentals of criminal law, court systems and practices. So if you are someone that loves law, you wanna be in the courtroom, you're gonna love those two classes. Um, but the great thing about these classes is that you're gonna have to, especially if you are taking um, if you're in the associates uh for criminal justice, you're gonna be taking all of these classes. So you're gonna learn a little bit about each corrections. We have several different corrections classes that that you can take too. Um, if you wanna learn about juvenile justice, we have a juvenile justice class, we have a crime in America class, and that one's one of my more favorite ones to teach because it gets into current events and also gets into criminology. So if you love the theology part of criminal justice, so like um different theories of why people do what they do, like the psychology behind it, crime in America gets into um all of those categories. And so later on in life, if you decide you want to get your master's, bachelor's, or master's in criminal justice, you're gonna refer back to that crime in America class a lot because you really dive into theory later on in criminal justice. So we kind of give you that um that option here to kind of start that process. So, really, I mean, you learn it all uh here at Lamar State College Orange, just taking these two-year classes because we start out that that program here. If you want to go and get your bachelor's later, all of these classes that you're taking here at LSCO will be able to be transferred. And it's the same classes that they're teaching at LU. Um, so everything they get to learn the entire system pretty much starting here at LSEO.

SPEAKER_03 18:20

That's awesome. So uh we'll go around the table for each of you. Uh, what advice would you give someone who is considering a career in criminal justice, but maybe doesn't know exactly where to start?

SPEAKER_00 18:33

I would I would say take our classes, um, start there. There's a lot of my students that get in and they might have an idea of what they want, but they honestly don't know all of the specialties that are out there. So they'll get here and take classes and learn about things that they didn't know about. Uh, I would also encourage them to be a part of our criminal justice student organization because we invite speakers to come in. We had a game warden come or three game wardens come in last week to talk to our students. We go and we visit the federal courthouse, we go and visit the federal prison in Beaumont. So we give them that outside of the classroom experience so they can actually see what it's like to do those careers.

SPEAKER_02 19:13

For me, I actually got started with um accounting because I wanted to do accounting. I thought I wanted to do accounting. But then when I got into law enforcement, I seen with so many different aspects of uh law enforcement. Me personally, I do the fire side of I investigate fires, I do explosives, investigated bums, I have a canine partner. I've been on the SWAT team for 10 years. So I was able to do so many different vast um principles within the law enforcement, which opened my eyes to getting a degree, going higher and getting education. So first thing I would tell them to do is like Holly said, sign up. Then you learn what you want to do with your niche or what you find appealing through signing up and seeing what's out there. Um I did my first class face-to-face this semester, and they they see this what they see on CSI Miami and all these different shows. And in the criminalistic class, we go into depth about DNA, hair sample follicles, and different things like that. And they're like, Well, I seen they had a run back and they found the person within one day. Like, now it doesn't work like that. There's a whole process. So now their eyes are blown wide open about the forensic side of it, the the lay side of it, the technical side of it. So I say first sign up, uh see where your niche is, find your groove, and and fall into it that way. Kind of how I done it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:28

You know, I'll jump on that as well for you as well, uh, because that accounting that you did, there's a lot I can tell you at the Houston Police Department, we would love to have somebody with the background because we would have to do uh dealing with large criminal organizations and things, and and accounting is a wonderful. In fact, if you if you look at that, there's a lot of people in the FBI who have accounting degrees. So criminal justice is wonderful because we'll take you from wherever you are to where you want to go. The only thing I've always stressed was if you don't have a passion to serve others, it may not be what you want. Yes. Because there's going to be a lot of bad things, ugly things that you see, but you have to remember you were placed there, at least I felt that way. I was placed there to do good when someone needed me the most. And there's not a lot of jobs that do that. So you see people when many times they're at their worst or the most devastating thing has happened to them, and you have to be able to comfort them, remain command presence, and get your job done. And I just don't know of any other profession that allows that. But we'll take you from where you are to where you want to go. But you really need to be someone who has a passion for people.

SPEAKER_03 21:46

Couldn't agree more. Definitely. I love it. Well, if you're interested in learning more about the criminal justice program at Lamar State College Orange, you can find more information on the LSCO website, or you can connect with our admissions team to explore how to get. started. So be sure to keep up with the latest Gator Bytes podcast episodes on the LSCO website, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts. Thanks for tuning in and we look forward to bringing you another conversation soon. Thank you guys.

SPEAKER_00 22:13

Thank you.

unknown 22:13

Thank you.