Episode Details

Anthony Godfrey:
Hello and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. They are careful not to contaminate evidence or miss a clue to solve a complicated, and in this case, fictional crime. We're talking about students in the Criminal Justice Program at JATC South in Riverton.

On this episode of the Supercast, hear from some criminal justice students who are excelling as crime scene investigators, using their forensic skills to compete at the national level and hopefully, one day land a job in law enforcement.

We're here at JATC South to learn more about the Criminal Justice Program, and we're talking with instructor Brandon Palmer. Brandon, tell us a little bit about this program and the competition we're here to learn more about.

Brandon Palmer:
Sure. The Criminal Justice Program here at the JATC is a concurrent enrollment program, which consists of four courses from the Salt Lake Community College. I combine these four courses so it seems like just one big program, but by the time they're done at the end of the year, they'll have 12 college credits along with their high school credit.

Anthony Godfrey:
Wow. That's a lot of credit.

Brandon Palmer:
It is. That's the huge benefit of this class. As we go through the class, I was in law enforcement for quite a while, and I kind of give them the truth about the careers that I was involved in throughout my career as a law enforcement officer. A lot of them come in thinking they want to be in law enforcement, forensics, or whatever. I direct them to get a good, educated idea of what their career is. I do have a lot at the end of the year telling me there's no way I'm going to do that. But I figure that's a win. That's a win.

Anthony Godfrey:
Those who've listened to the podcast before know that I've said it's as important to learn that this is not something you want to do as it is to find out that, hey, this is a career I'd like to pursue. Because this is a great time to explore that. You get some college credit in the process, and then you're not on a path that you find out most of the way through your degree that this might not be for me. But I'm sure you also find some students who really decide, hey, I love this even more than I thought I would.

Brandon Palmer:
They then have a better-educated background to make that decision.

Anthony Godfrey:
Sure. They can kind of chart their path from here to get to their career goal. Tell me about the competition.

Brandon Palmer:
The competition is through SkillsUSA. It's a national CTSO. These ladies just did the state competition. The three here on this side did the Criminal Investigation competition, and they won gold. And then this one here did the Criminal Justice competition, and she also won gold.

Anthony Godfrey:
Wow. That's awesome.

Brandon Palmer:
It is. It's great. They worked hard, and then they showed up, and they did what they needed to do. And now they're on their way to Georgia.

Anthony Godfrey:
So tell me about the two competitions and what's involved.

Brandon Palmer:
Okay, so the criminal investigation competition, they'll be able to get into more detail than I will. But there's several phases. There is a crime scene where they have to walk in together as a team, work together as a team to get a good i