Mostly from watching TV cop shows :rolleyes: I get the impression that the way you become a police detective is by working as a beat cop for some period of time and then applying to become a detective, which involves taking and passing a test.
Let’s say I have a criminal justice degree, and have graduated from the police academy, but I am a brand new cop. Is there anyway I can take the detective’s test without having to be a beat cop for some period of time?
In other words, is there a way to go from college or police academy directly into the detective squad without having to pay my dues as a police office first?
Not in most Florida departments, but it’s probably possible somewhere (here, you undergo additional training with the department before qualifying as a detective, which most candidates do while serving as sheriff’s deputies).
Not likely in “normal” agencies (those with a patrol division). You have to pay your dues and learn a few things and that can take a few years, at least. On rare occasions a recruit may graduate and go directly undercover for a period but when that investigation is over, its back to uniform.
In the agency I retired from (a prosecutor’s office) it was possible to be hired without any prior experience, be sent to an “Investigators Academy” and then step right in to an Investigator/Detective position. I had uniformed experience before I was hired but over the years the mindset of the top administration changed and they began hiring recent college grads and others with no law enforcement experience. It was a big mistake in my opinion. Although there were a few exceptions, the difference between the experienced and inexperienced was stark. No “street smarts”, the inability do deal with hostile subjects w/o resorting to force, lack of discipline and life experience (in other words, the things that come with doing patrol job) were plainly evident in the “no experience” group. Most of them I wouldn’t want backing me up if things got hairy. We worked a lot with local and state police and if they knew the detective fell into that group, credibility was tough to earn. I spent my career in “street” units - narcotics, violent crimes and homicide. These were no place for college boys/girls but they would get assigned anyway. It made the work twice as hard because you weren’t sure if they would react correctly under pressure. It would take a major screw up on their part to get them transferred out of the unit. Mere incompetence wasn’t enough.
Sorry if that was a bit of a rant but it was always a sore spot with me.
Summed up nicely. There are usually reasons why we do things the way we do them. I’m not looking to become a detective myself, just wondered if there was some easy way to ‘jump the queue’.
The Denver police department has a category they call “investigator” which does not involve ever being a beat cop, necessarily. But my impression is that it’s more of a paperwork kind of position, or like a skip tracer. They’re looking for a degree in criminal justice, and it doesn’t look, from the job description, as though it leads to any advancement in particular. It is in support of the detectives, at least the way I read it.
Not exactly what the OP asked, but here’s something close:
The Public Defender also employs investigators. They tend to be mostly in the business of finding the defendant’s side of the story and locating potentially helpful witnesses. But they also seek out physical evidence, etc. Much as the police detectives do for the prosecution.
One of my SILs did that job for many years. She is not, and never was, a police officer in any form.
From what I’ve seen on TV, at least in New York and LA Detective isn’t just a position, it is a rank. A beat cop doesn’t just have to take the test, he has to earn the promotion.
HOWEVER,
Ordinary officers who are not "detective"s can be assigned to jobs where they work in “plain clothes”, and their duties overlap with what tv "detective"s often do.
In most jobs, someone getting hired as a Manager from outside the company is pretty rare. Most companies would rather promote from within. Somebody with no experience getting hired is virtually unheard of: if they do happen to hire someone as a Manager, that person was usually already a manager somewhere else.
So I don’t think it is very likely for someone to get hired by a police department at the rank of Detective if they weren’t already a Detective somewhere else.
As well it should have been. Being a detective or investigator almost screams that you need to have that experience, and the only place to get it is in the School of Hard Knocks. For example, Houston PD’s criminal investigator requirements state that you MUST have at least three years experience in patrol, even if you have prior LEO experience with another agency. You gotta know your turf.