Fringe. Castle. Psych. The Mentalist. Medium. The Dresden Files. Missing.
The list of TV shows that feature non-law enforcement consultants to the FBI or police is pretty long. In these shows they tag along and help solve cases. Does this have any basis in reality?
I’ve heard that psychics are sometimes actually helpful to the police, but are they actively going to crime scenes or merely telling the police what their, um, visions say happened?
Bringing civilians into a crime scene, never mind letting them investigate, sounds like a huge liability issue, but we readily accept it on shows…so does it happen in real life, or not?
I’m not sure why this seems so strange to you. The Government hires contractors for all kinds of things, including what are essentially mercenaries to fill certain dangerous roles (e.g. Blackwater). The private sector will always have far better IT security specialists and former military personnel that can assist law enforcement in a far better way and at a lower cost their own folks often can. These people also have access to a much better set of resources and aren’t hobbled by the bureaucracy of inter-department funding/rivalry issues within the Government as well.
My boss is ex-Special Forces and has worked through various defense contractors for law enforcement, DHS, and the utility companies because of his unique skill sets. Right now in my current company, I am working on projects for DHS and the Air Force, but have never served with either Agency.
I’ve heard some self-professed psychics claim that they were helpful to the police, but I’ve never heard the police say it. OTOH there have been instances where the police specifically DENIED that Mystic Fred (or whoever) had helped them in any way at all.
Depends what you mean by “consultants”. If there is a specific issue involving arcane knowledge, like the specific metallurgical properties of medieval church bells, or the performance of oesophagectomies is required, they will find someone who knows this stuff, and engage them on an as-needs, case by case basis.
As to having roving “consultants” who routinely attend cases and give advice, not so much. If the police need that sort of expertise on tap constantly, they tend to hire. Thus, ballistics experts, handwriting experts, computer analysts, etc, whose services are regularly required are government employees. I can’t think of any field where a private consultant would be routinely engaged to be intimately involved in the investigation including attending the scene and interviews in the style of TV “consultants”.
I thinking the OP’s question isn’t about law enforcement calling in experts to provide information about some specific issue. The examples he gives are of non-law enforcement people acting as investigators. The police and the FBI shouldn’t need outside consultants to investigate crimes - they’re supposed to know how to do that already.
I imagine expert witnesses are a different matter, though, not hired by the police but the district or US attorney’s office. I’ve known of one or two people who regularly hire out their services to the government on that basis.
ETA: I know that’s different from what was specified by the OP, but I could see how someone watching Law & Order might get it mixed up whether Dr. Skoda was working for the police department or the DA’s office.
You’re correct. I’m not talking about experts who are called in for one crime to shed light on it, but people they routinely take with them into the field to help with their investigations on an on-going basis.
The problem with the TV shows is not the consultants, but the depiction of how the process actually works. For example CSI shows crime scene investigators acting as detectives and making arrests, but they do none of that.
Are consultants brought in for case work?
Yes, it is not uncommon for the police department to consult with experts on a wide range of topics, and contrary to the cynic above they do actually consult with Psychics. This doesn’t mean that Psychic powers are real, but there have been cases where 1 or more Psychics were brought in for something like a missing person and it did result in the locating the missing person. This is rare and usually does not work, but it does happen.
A more common scenario is as follows:
Police have a case where there is lots of blood, but the CSI blood technicians do not have a clear understanding how what the blood spatter says about the crime. Several conflicting theories arise and then the police department contracts out to a company the does blood spatter analysis (BSA). The BSA looks over the evidence and might even visit the crime scene or want to look at the physical body. If their work results in additional findings or an arrest they may have to also testify in court.
Scenario 2:
In the early days when criminal profiling was untested the FBI did not have a division for this so police departments would consult with companies who claimed to be experts in this newly emerging field. This was also done in the early days of DNA before DNA was considered standard police work. The expert consults with the police and might even ask to speak with people involved in the case to acquire information about the crime that was not asked or poorly documented. This is then used to create a criminal profile and they too will have to testify in court if the previous conditions are met.
So as you can see consultants can go to a crime scene, work with evidence, and even talk with victims, persons with information, or even a person of interest. However, it depends on what they are being contracted out to do and all of it is done THROUGH the police force. They do not independently go out and investigate the crime or get free range over everything on the case. As long as they do not falsely represent them self, and follow very specific procedures for handling evidence or talking with people during a case they are fine.
In many cases consultants are previous law enforcement and understand things like chain of evidence.
Also consultants are expensive and you don’t have the same expert being used over and over again on all cases. There might be a company with experts in a wide variety of fields that the police force has a contract with.
Can you point to any such cases – where the 'psychic’s information actually was used and made a difference? As the Staff Report notes, it’s really easy for a con artist to make some vague and useless predictions, then claim they all came true when real policework solved the case, so I really don’t want to hear about those situations.
But if a ‘psychic’ has said something specific enough to be useful that pointed the police in a direction they would not otherwise have gone, then I would be interested to know about it.
Are there cases where someone claims that it was psychic powers that caused them to provide the answers they gave and then those answers made a critical change to the case direction… yes.
But that isn’t evidence in psychic powers. That is evidence that shows if you randomly generate answers long enough your are eventually going to get it right. It is no different then someone winning the lottery. Millions of “psychics” have predictions on cases on a regular basis, but if you exclude the jackpot winning prediction and compare to how many times they are wrong or how many predictions by all psychics you will see that the numbers are against them.
However, winning a multi-state lotter jackpot is life changing in the same way that predicting the details of a serious crime are also life changing for the psychic.
To give you a direct answer. I won’t give a case that is pro-psychic because I don’t think naming the fluke is NOT a good indication on the reality of the situation, but that doesn’t mean that from time to time a family member pays a psychic to participate. Which is actually the common reason a psychic might be involved and it is a courtesy of the police to let them participate.
However, if that psychic is horseshoe accurate in the prediction the police department may actually try to pay them on a future case. Specifically the detective recommends them… and I don’t think I can name a situation where the 2nd time they also got a home run. usually the next time up to bat they fail horribly and waste tax payers money.
Buddy of mine works for a RAND Corporation-like entity (independent non-profit research firm that almost exclusively works in various capacities for the government) and while he was waiting for his security clearance they had him doing crime scene video analysis. Apparently wasn’t too pleasant. Not sure if he ever had to appear in court for anything, but he was told that he could expect to be called to testify upon his analysis work.
The television show Homicide was based on a book written by a journalist who rode along with Homicide investigators for a year. In a sense, that’s no different than what Castle does in Castle. If, when he was out with the detectives, he had an idea and proposed it to the detectives, it’s perfectly possible that they might have acted on the idea. But note that he’s not a consultant. He’s just a guy who is riding along doing research for a book (or series of books in Castle’s case). Helping out on the cases is a side-effect, not a goal.
My friend, who wanted to become a police officer when he grew up, was able to do a good number of ride-alongs with the local police. They apparently liked to do this, as a way of promoting the job so that they had more future applicants. Those were probably not investigative cases that he was ever there on, but again, I suspect that if he had been and he had an idea that the officers thought was decent, they’d have gone with it.
In the TV show Fringe, Peter was not brought on as a consultant. Walter was probably hired as a government employee, not a consultant.
You might want to recheck the shows you are watching to verify that the people who you think are “consultants” actually are. People can and do ride along with the police – so long as the chief gives permission, I guess – but they’re not consultants. That doesn’t mean that they can’t give advise and help out, so long as they’re there.
That works, but there are complicating factors that would make me question it. Let’s look at the type of consultants we have in fiction -
Psych - called in to work specific cases and truly consultant only. Slightly modified in recent season by the police department hiring a part time staff member to manage all consultants.
Castle - unpaid, originally a ride along situation, arranged by a friendship with the mayor
The Mentalist - that’s a really odd situation - I missed the premise, but I gather from watching that he is an unpaid consultant in return for living quarters in the police attic and free access to police files related to the death of his family
Fringe - even more complicated - although Peter and Walter are brought on as consultants for a specific case, they end up sticking around as a special task force. Plus, it’s the FBI.
So we have ridealong vs consultant vs member of task force, and free vs paid, and at will vs permanent. Lots of different factors there.
As you say you don’t know the full story … And I do not speak to realism here: The main character of the Mentalist once claimed to be a psychic and boasted regarding a serial killer. The killer then murdered the psychic’s family to teach him a lesson. The psychic is now determined to track down the murderer and see him dead. He volunteered his help to the police, does not get paid, but plays an important role in investigations due to his skill in reading people (his training to be a “psychic” being the basis thereof), near eidetic memory, and deducing complex puzzles and relationships. After initial hostility and resistance by the investigating team, they have brought him in to play a significant role in all their cases.
I like that show because it has some humour in it as well as the puzzle solving. The problem with it is that they seem incapable of solving anything without Patrick’s help. It never occurred to me that a real LEA would work that way.
Years ago when I was looking at mathematics jobs, I once saw a job posting for a position with the Toronto police; they were looking for a mathematician to work in their illegal gambling unit. I don’t believe it had had any law enforcement experience as a prerequisite.