Police Now and Graduate entry Police careers?

[BobtheFrog]

Trying to understand how folks begin a career in the police after Uni.

My daughter is looking at 'Police Now' Detective route but I know individual forces recruit directly - ultimately she is interested in counter fraud or intelligence rather than community policing.

No idea where to start or where to get reliable information about the nature of the work

The police now route enters you straight into neighbourhood policing, and the detective route straight into being a detective. If you go the normal route you enter as a response officer. Which ever way you enter, most forces make you do two years before you can specialise or go for promotion.

My force has recruited direct entry detectives through Police Now but also recruit their own direct entry detectives. Police Now train their officers at their own training centre with officers then going back to force to
be tutored first in uniform for a few months then they move across to CID.
Its a very intense programme as they have to do university work alongside their training.
it is generally successful and has produced some good detectives so far.

If she entered the standard recruit route she’d have to do 2 years probation in uniform before becoming a detective.

Has your daughter never thought of army /RAF police. My son is currently doing RAF police training and you can specialise much quicker than general police

Thanks folks, helpful :)

FWIW Military service roles were excluded early for a lot of reasons, even though I felt they were more interesting in some ways.

No problem if you need anything else let me know

$64,000 question - so what is the day to day job of a Detective really like . . . ?

For context, my DD was a Police Cadet at 16, she found the weekly meetings boring because "not much actually happened" and she seemed to be the only one who did the homework / reading.

She did get to do some "proper" police stuff (mostly I think, because the other kids weren't interested) like underage purchases and had to provide statements etc when she managed to buy alcohol or cigarettes.

Granny is also worried about "police culture" and is concerned a young woman wanting to be a police detective will experience all sorts of unpleasantness in the workplace (from colleagues)

It can be really busy and exciting but there is a lot of form filling and computer work. The work is so varied and no 2 days are the same. CID used to be jobs for the boys but it’s very female now and I personally think women are better cut out for that work especially dealing with victims. The culture is improving and far better than it was 30 years ago when I joined.

My friend's DD was accepted as a graduate straight into a trainee detective role. She is now a DC. She has never been in uniform.