Ask the Recruiter

The job market for online criminal justice instructors should be pretty strong, albeit for an unfortunate reason. The increased focus on homeland security since 9/11 has created an increased demand for a variety of security, intelligence, and criminal justice professionals. This type of demand typically has a "pipeline" effect: the creation of more jobs means a need for more qualified candidates, which means a need for more training, which means a need for more instructors. In other words, filling the pipeline for these jobs starts with adding instructors who can train people for them.

As for applying for this type of position, by definition, you should be able to do a fair amount of research online. Research online criminal justice degree programs, and use this as a source for institutions that might need instructors. On these schools' websites, you will often find a link for employment; if not, start with the "contact us" link, and work your way from there.

If contacting these institutions via the Internet does not yield any results, try doing a little research by telephone. Contact department heads to see what their upcoming needs might be, and what qualifications they tend to look for. This should give you an idea of whether you are trying the right employers, and it might even yield you a worthwhile contact or two.