What's it like to be a detective?

October 13, 2006 1:49 PM

Are you, or have you ever been, a detective?

I want to know about detective work. How do you get there? What leads to the profession? What kinds of things does one get to do? What is a normal work-day like? Do you get to have a social life? Is there a stigma? What are the hidden benefits - access to databases or getting to run license plates etc? What's the strangest thing you've ever had to do? Tell me everything....

posted by wildclover to work & money (14 comments total)

Are you asking about working as a police detective, or as a private investigator?
posted by Siobhan at 2:00 PM on October 13, 2006

If you're looking for information about being a private investigator, the book Spy Girl by Amy Gray is very interesting.
posted by sugarfish at 2:09 PM on October 13, 2006

I was wondering this very thing recently. Wikipedia has a great article on it.
How do you get there and what leads to the profession? That varies by state. Here in California you have to complete 2000 hours of related work (employment at a bail bonds shop counts, apparently) and tke a test. Other states (Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Mississippi, Missouri, and South Dakota) have no requirements to fulfill before you hang your shingle.
posted by lekvar at 2:25 PM on October 13, 2006

Siobhan ~
Really, I'm interested in working as a private investigator but if being on a police force is a part of that or a means to an end - I'd like to know that too.
Thanks!
posted by wildclover at 2:29 PM on October 13, 2006

Have you been watching too much Veronica Mars lately?

On a serious note, some googling found the US Dept of Labor page on private detectives and investigators, it's actually quite detailed and may be useful to you.
posted by echo0720 at 4:22 PM on October 13, 2006

Just to open your mind to similar possibilities.. what about being a spy? I don't know about where you are, but in the UK spies are, curiously, often advertised for. I'd say it's very closely related to being a detective.
posted by wackybrit at 6:13 PM on October 13, 2006

This American Life did an episode about detectives. The last section has Ira Glass accompany a private detective on the job. Might be worth giving a listen to.
posted by gwint at 6:53 PM on October 13, 2006

I've been a private investigator, and where I live the difference between private investigator and security guard is the necessity of wearing a uniform.

The best opportunities are in insurance fraud and this would depend on how the industry is regulated in your area, investigating industrial accidents (this is good -think two paycheques), catching cheating spouses (which is pretty dodgy), and then some serving papers and bug-detection (which I would say is also pretty dodgy because you are usual dealing with someone who is mentally unwell).

I usually worked as uniformed security, my biggest PI gig was watching a vigilante group who was monitoring a school that got routinely vandalized. I had to hide, watch the group, and make sure that they made a proper arrest and didn't engage in any mob justice. Sounds kind of interesting, but you are almost always sitting in a car for hours on end watching something or somebody and trying to avoid junk food, smoking, and curious neighbours.
posted by Deep Dish at 10:41 PM on October 13, 2006 [1 favorite]

I don't know where you live, but the many of the investigators at a bay area government agency specializing in death penalty defense started of working desk jobs at the agency. I believe there is a track at this agency whereby you assist in information processing/organization with the agency for a year or so and then can move on to investigation if you want to.

The investigators at this office do a TON of background research on each death penalty case they are assigned. They fly all over, interview family of the defendant etc., and do all sorts of record retrieval, people finding, and F2F investigation. I wish I had known about this job before going to law school! (Not that I would have changed my mind, but being an investigator for 5 years would have been a lot better than working at a textbook company for almost that long!) E-mail me if you live in the bay area and are interested in more information.

You may also look at trying to swing a job as an investigator for a smaller county's public defender office. If you want to do DA investogation you most often have to go through POST (Police officer standards?) training, carry a gun, etc. The most common way to do this is to go through police academy. Oakland CA is paying 69,999 or something to start. (At least that's what the huge banner hanging on the jail beside the freeway says.) Good luck!
posted by prettyboyfloyd at 9:01 AM on October 14, 2006 [1 favorite]

My aunt was offered a job as a court investigator after effectively sneaking about and taking important pictures that allowed her son to retain custody of his children after a messy divorce. Her advantage is that no one suspects a 60+ year old woman with a camera of doing anything "dodgy". In fact, a house painter working on the neighbor's house was the one that gave her a ladder to get up into a tree and take important pictures of her daughter-in-law for the court case.

The DA is now giving her periodic assignments for photography and investigative work. It's certainly not day-job wages, but she gets a real kick out of it.
posted by thanotopsis at 10:48 AM on October 14, 2006

I've read about ten articles over the years on what being a detective is really like, and they all basically said "if you think it's exciting, you're wrong".

Most of the work is for insurance companies, and involves watching some guy claiming to be incapacitated by a back injury to see if he really is.

You watch him for a week and if he plays a round of golf, you take photos or video.

It's mind-numbingly boring by all accounts. Even the same kind of thing when it comes to marital infidelity would be boring 99% of the time.
posted by AmbroseChapel at 4:39 PM on October 14, 2006

A friend of mine worked for a PI for a while, but has recently decided to get out of the business. Most of the time he was doing the kind of work AmbroseChapel described above; essentially he was videotaping people for insurance companies.

I think his sympathy eventually got the better of him, because during the course of following people around and observing them doing things that contradicted their worker's compensation claims, he would also realize that a lot of them were dirt poor and really needed the money, even though they may have been cheating the insurance company.

I was a surprised by how much of his work was in the service of big insurance conglomerates (basically, almost all of it). It certainly didn't fit the idea of detective work that Raymond Chandler prepared me for, or even the more mundane "prove my ex-wife is cheating / locate the dude who owes me money" job that I thought was more realistic.
posted by whir at 7:35 PM on October 14, 2006

Thanks to everyone for your comments and answers! This is all really great!
posted by wildclover at 10:07 AM on October 15, 2006

Sorry not to have posted again sooner, wildclover...note that this is all based on my own non-PI observation.

The person I know who is a PI is hired by lawyers who are representing defendants in (usually) homicide cases. He works for a small agency, but others in the same field work as independent contractors. He interviews witnesses, examines crime scene evidence, and makes reports of his conclusions to the defendant's attorney. He also contracts out to experts who can provide information and/or testimony on specific forensic issues like time of death and blood spatter. He spends time out hunting people down, etc., but there is a ton of paperwork too, stuff like police reports that are long and complex.

He doesn't have a related educational background; he worked as a paralegal at a law firm that hired this type of investigator, did some of it in the course of his work, and basically started from the bottom at an investigating agency. I think a criminal justice or related degree can be helpful, but from what I know there is no one accepted or required degree to do this kind of work.

I'm sure working for an insurance company is different, but he likes his job a lot, and from the outside it seems like varied, interesting (if morbid) work. As prettyfloydboy mentions, there is a big call for investigators in death penalty cases -- you could look into "capital defense investigation" if this sounds like it might interest you.

In this state, you have to complete a 40-hour (I think) course and pass an exam, and are then licensed by the state.

I'm sure there is a lot of variation depending on one's specialty, but he works pretty standard business hours, and there's no stigma, aside from people thinking his job is cool and wanting to hear about it. He does have access to a database that lists all of people's known addresses and social security numbers and stuff, but no capacity to run license plates as far as I know.
posted by Siobhan at 9:34 AM on October 17, 2006