No, I’m not suggesting it’s a waste of time, per se. It depends on your goals and your values.
Many students/people value learning and research above almost all else; those people would value getting a PhD even if it didn’t lead directly into getting a job. Honestly, there are worse things in life than getting paid a modest amount of money for 6-8 years to study things and answer questions that you are super passionate about. (I have a PhD in public health + psychology.) And the skills that you learn in a PhD you will use, directly or indirectly, in any job that you take after that. Furthermore, the unemployment rate for PhD holders is below 3%. So, if you get a PhD, it is very unlikely that you will be unemployed; you will get to study something you really like; you have a chance at getting jobs that require the PhD in your field and will keep you doing research you love (whereas if you don’t get the PhD, you can’t compete for them); and you will learn useful skills regardless of what you end up doing.
So, for example, I can say that a sociology PhD is “more versatile” than a criminal justice PhD. But if you want a PhD in criminal justice - because that’s what you are passionate about and prepared for - it doesn’t matter, right? It’s kind of like there are more job openings in engineering or computer science, so those PhDs would be more ‘versatile’ than my PhD, but I didn’t get one in those fields because I didn’t want the kinds of jobs they would prepare me for.
I don’t know; ‘justice, law, and criminology’ seems very similar to ‘criminal justice.’ I don’t really see a large distinction between the two. Rankings - or program reputation, at least - play a lot into academic jobs and somewhat into non-academic jobs. #19 is pretty good, though, so within the top 25-30 I would pick the best program that suits you.