AIBU to consider a career as a police detective

[NotInspectorPoirotYet]

I think it sounds like a interesting, rewarding and challenging job but I'm worried about whether it's really compatible with family life? Any detective's with primary school aged children out there? How do you find it?

At the moment I do a job that I find some what uninspiring but that is well paid and with a reasonable work life balance, 40 hours + commute but no real overtime or unsociable hours.

Despite what people are saying? Why not listen to those doing the job?

What’s your main reason for not joining as a PC?

Never knew police were so stricken with internal rivalries and resentment - this thread is an eye opener!

Op I wouldn’t let it put you off that some people on here are saying they resent people joining via direct entry. If you think you have something to offer then good luck to you.

It’s not about internal rivalries at all. It’s a job where you need a good understanding, know your beat, know how to speak to people and have a great understanding about the job as a whole.

Half the battle is speaking to people and knowing your community. That comes with time on the beat.

God, the typos. Four years later. I'm four years out.

And yes, there will be a lot of resentment towards DE officers - there always has been for the senior officer entrants as well. It's considered that you aren't the same as they haven't been through the same graft as the rest of their colleagues and are given grief for it.

You have to understand the police are very insular, and are very distrusting of change.

I worked with civilian investigators in my force, and they were a mix of fabulous and awful. Some were utterly out of their depth and froze when confronted with anything slightly confrontational, which I'm afraid happens a lot. Others included retired cops who should never have been hired as they were incredibly lazy and relied on ancient reputations to sit around and do nothing at all. Some of the best were keen, willing to learn and get their hands dirty on house searches, court cases and paperwork. They were fantastic to work with.

Cake sale at the school, I ask my husband to pick up some cakes to donate, and specify it needs to be a precut cake or fairy cakes, for obvious reasons.

So I take my daughter to the sale, to choose some cakes,and on the side are two giant uncut cakes not being included in the sale thanks to my husband.

AIBU to think I didn't want a man child for a husband.

I know someone who is in the final stages of being accepted for direct graduate entry to the Met as a trainee detective. (Just needs to pass medical).

I thought it was strange at first, since traditionally detectives were police officers first and moved up through the ranks. But when you think about it, why not? Being a detective and investigating many crimes (including fraud, money laundering, cyber crimes etc) require a totally different skillset to being able to control a riot, or police a rowdy football match, or sort out a domestic, or break up a fight, or redirect traffic after at RTA. All very useful and valuable skills, but not directly related to being a detective in all cases, I wouldn't have thought. Perhaps recruiting people with specialist skills in other fields like finance and IT and then training them up on the policing side will be beneficial and a fresh approach? Go for it OP, if it floats your boat!

I think lots of jobs were anti grad recruits. Until it becomes the norm. Nursing was similar. However, as the brightest (and even not so bright) ) now go to university, how can the Police going to recruit the best people if they ignore grads? This isn’t sustainable and high performing grads don’t necessarily need to do basic PC jobs. They can learn on the job as well. They just start at 21! M&S and nearly every top recruiter has done this for years. You do not have to start on the shop floor to be a manager! You are trained to do a higher level job from day 1.

The Police don’t come across as being professional. They come across as insular. Of course grads can be of use in many fields where standard police training isn’t great. They can specialise and there is lots of room for improvement. Let’s professionalise the force and see what improvements can be made rather than existing police officers closing ranks, feeling threatened and lashing out at new staff.

The police don’t ignore grads. I’m a graduate. 50% of the people on my team are graduates.
We just don’t think being a graduate means you can skip the most vital part of learning to be a police officer.

The vast majority of my work load is assaults, sexual offences, attempt murder, robbery, IIOC, fire raising. Very rarely do we get frauds or financial enquiries and these will generally go to the other departments for investigation.

Cyber crime has its own department, as has money laundering investigation.

Most general detective work is violence and drug based and a degree or financial background won’t assist with that.

I did the job of a detective for two years and went back to uniform in the end. This was pre children. It was extremely stressful and I had 30 plus crimes on at any one time. It was the usual public sector nonsense of not enough staff, too much bureaucracy, no one wanted to make difficult decisions and the organisation wanting more and more but giving less. Sad thing was I loved the actual investigations but the stress was unreal, I ended up becoming ill.
I’m so happy to be back in uniform now. Whilst the public can sometimes be annoying most of them are fine. Even most of the prisoners aren’t even that bad. it’s the actual organisation which almost seems to hate us and conspire to make our job harder

Apologies,
I was starting a thread. I guess where my husband lacks in common sense , I lack in IT. (He's in IT) lol

Nicknacky, I think I am too old. Frankly I might be too old anyway.

And I think that I'd probably be better at crime investigation than law enforcement. Background in finance, problem solving and technical IT stuff.

But I am listening to what you are all saying and I am going to look into it. If direct entry DC is a bad idea then probably policing is not suitable for me.

Basically the consensus is among the police posting that there are no decent reasons for direct entry DC, and it's just desperation among management rather than a different skill set needed from the work done by uniformed officers.

Oops I forgot the deaths. That’s a big part of my working week.

Two things from pps

Firstly - are you hoping to avoid violence/confrontation by being a dc? Because you won’t, frankly. Maybe less than a uniformed officer but it’s still part of life, you’re dealing with criminals

Secondly, the specialist posts you mention - fraud, cyber - are very difficult to get into. They recruit rarely and have many applicants, many of which will have been detectives for years. So thinking you will deal with local crime for two years and then get a role like that may be naive. One of the reasons detectives are leaving is due to lack of career opportunities

Cid is law enforcement! I think you need to go speak to your local cid and ask about their workload because it’s not as heavily reliant of cyber skills as you think it is.

Detecting crime is generally all about getting out from behind a desk, getting out and speaking to people (unless you work in a specialised unit)

I doubt you are too old. A friend of mine joined recently in her mid 40s. She wasn’t the oldest in her intake.

Since I'm on this thread , I'd like to add that I think Coldilox has a point.
You're bound to come across some things which are distressing and experience with difficult situations and things on the beatt would help.If not only for making connections and getting to know the system.

Why not try for jobs in the police staff related to cyber crime and the likes? I've applied for a few, although been unsuccessful so far, but you'd probably find the hours better there than as detective.

We have loads of civilian financial investigators in our force. They do a lot of the POCA stuff. That could be a good role for you if that’s what you are interested in?

Nicknacky, Cyber crime and money laundering investigation is exactly the type of thing that I would like to do. I think I would find it really interesting and probably be good at it. And I think I would find it more meaningful than my current job.

To start off with though it is would be all types of crime. I can see that my career background would probably be of limited use to start off with.

I would be wary of becoming a DC... most of the DCs in safeguarding in my force are now stuck - they are being prevented from moving departments as no one wants to replace them in SGU. At one point people were refusing to become DCs due to this.

The Police don’t have a grad recruitment fast track scheme. Nearly every other big employer does. So many posters seemed to think starting at 16 was best. There needs to be a mix and of course grads can help every aspect of law enforcement! Why not?

CID in my area don’t deal with cybercrime and financial/POCA. We have separate units for that.