To ask if you can become a detective without being a police officer?

[LardeeLar]

Or do you have to go out on the beat for a few years first? I think solving cases would be fun but wouldn't fancy wandering around council estates trying to pick kids up for selling weed. Or hitting the streets and intervening in punch ups.

@ComplaintsComplaintsComplaints
Yes, that's another point I hadn't considered. The emotional pressure and stress of messing up and someone getting hurt, or equally I imagine in some cases wondering if you really got the right person.

Also another aspect that would probably freak me out (but again maybe ìve watched too many series!) is that idea that there could be loads of people walking around (family members, people who have been let out) who know who I am and have a massive grudge.

For those of you who are police/detectives does that not freak you out?

I literally couldn't care less what other people think.

If you think that's the biggest problems then you need to do some serious research.

I can't stress enough how police work is absolutely nothing like the series you're watching.

Yes govt introduced direct entry to being a detective without prior police training
It’s not always exciting, lots if admin and prices.shift work and unsocial hours
Dramatic,hardly ever. Ongoing Encounters with many unsavoury people.
Mentally demanding you need a resilience thats for sure. but it becomes a routine too

The chances of the wrong person getting convicted these days are so slim (its hard to get the right person convicted) that part wouldn't concern me at all.

As for people bearing a grudge - I worked in an area where the whole community had a grudge! I used to park up at 6.30am around a quarter of a mile from the station, and when I was doing door to door enquiries on another road the resident was able to tell me exactly what car I drove... other people on my unit had their tyres let down, sugar poured into their petrol tanks etc etc. But that would be the same for uniformed officers too.

@JorisBonson
I didnt mean worrying about what people think of you, I meant worrying that you were going to get harmed in retaliation for having sent someone to prison

@LardeeLar.

This is something that is very unlikely to happen in real life. It may happen on telly.

It will require a lot of training to become a detective, and you have to be the type of person who can cope with some awful and horrible things in life at times. The are enough TV programmes that highlight the work of detectives, and witness what they may come across sometimes.

@ComplaintsComplaintsComplaints

The chances of the wrong person getting convicted these days are so slim (its hard to get the right person convicted) that part wouldn't concern me at all.

As for people bearing a grudge - I worked in an area where the whole community had a grudge! I used to park up at 6.30am around a quarter of a mile from the station, and when I was doing door to door enquiries on another road the resident was able to tell me exactly what car I drove... other people on my unit had their tyres let down, sugar poured into their petrol tanks etc etc. But that would be the same for uniformed officers too.

I'm wondering if we used to work in the same area 😂

Maybe! Or maybe there's more than one place like that, depressing idea though it is!

Become a consulting detective.

I mean, come on, who browses a few crimes in the paper, pondering the case, and then goes "I wonder if I could be a detective even though I'm scared of council estates, kids, criminals being tied up, physical activity or emotional pressure."

@LardeeLar five mins on Google or your local forces site would have answered all your questions....

Sounds like. You are impatient for next series of line of Duty . And do you really think police officers go round "estates" like security guards ?

@BananaPop2020
No, I think this thread has done more to answer my questions than that, actually.

So if you become a detective, will you just ask for the answers on MN with every case you deal with?

Direct entry or not, I'd have thought the ability to do some research was a prerequisite.

I don’t know much about it.... but surely to be a good detective would you not need some of the skills you’d get from dealing with kids using weed on the local estate etc.
If you’re not up for that sort of thing then are you cut out for it?

A friend's DD has just become Detective Inspector, at 31 she is the youngest female DI in this force. She has worked her way up.

Disclaimer that I am not in the police, but can say as a nurse my interactions with CID are mainly things like RTCs and Assaults where there isn't a mystery to solve, they know who did it they're just getting statements and evidence etc. Crime admin essentially.

So if you're after solving mysteries and picking up clues then you might be barking up the wrong tree.

@Duanphen

I mean, come on, who browses a few crimes in the paper, pondering the case, and then goes "I wonder if I could be a detective even though I'm scared of council estates, kids, criminals being tied up, physical activity or emotional pressure."

Yeah... that’s kind of what I was getting at 😂

• I imagine in some cases wondering if you really got the right person., A solicitor I knew, whose entire job consisted of defending people in court, told me that if you had got as far as being on trial in court you were pretty definitely guilty.

I had a cameraman come out with me and my colleague whilst they were filming "Cop Squad" and he sat very despondently at a hospital guard with us for ten hours. The reality differs massively from the edited highlights you see on the telly. Why not sign up as a Special and see how you get on? DC's do not outrank PC's and you would be wise to disabuse yourself of that notion from the get go.

@Ginfilledcats

Detective is a dank. You have to have a degree and pass many exams to get to detective. And yes you have to do you time on the beat.

Detective isn’t a rank, it’s a specialism. You have to have completed two years probation as a pc before you can specialise into any area. To be a detective you need to pass a detective exam, course and portfolio proving your skills. What kind of crime you deal with depends on what department to go into. I dealt with domestic violence, rape, child abuse, sex offenders, child deaths, baby deaths. It’s a very rewarding job and some enquiries take more out of you than others. You never know which jobs are going to hit you hard. Murders are generally dealt with by a specialist major investigation team. CID tend to deal with burglaries, assaults, robberies. I would ignore anything you see on tv about being a detective as they never show the reality. It’s very procedural which of course doesn’t make for very exciting tv.

@LardeeLar some of the responses on this thread are inaccurate ‘actually’

@JorisBonson

I literally couldn't care less what other people think.

If you think that's the biggest problems then you need to do some serious research.

I can't stress enough how police work is absolutely nothing like the series you're watching.

So true. Especially that line of duty bollocks. I’ve never seen such rubbish. Don’t you find your knowledge spoils your enjoyment of Police dramas. I find myself sat there going “that doesn’t happen”, “this never happens”😆

(You also need several marriages under your belt 😂).

As an ex-PC married to a 30 year TC, this comments rings very very true indeed!