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FICTION
& MISCONCEPTIONS V REALITY
If I, the writer, wanted to
provide a memorable and amusing event for the police officers
working at the local precinct, I could stop by the station, apply
for a lieutenant's position and claim my 33 years of private
investigative experience obviously qualified me for the job.
When the laughter finally abated, there might be a question as to
whether I should be referred to a service providing psychological
assistance.
On the other hand, if I were to apply for an entrance level position
and go through the standard police training, there would likely be
many times that my private sector experience would give me an
advantage over other officers.
This, of course, is a two way street. Police work and private
investigation work has little in common. In many parts of the
world, today, police officers' primary function is raising revenue
by issuing traffic citations. In some cases, due to multilevel
funding situations, an officer close by a crime in progress may be
prohibited from responding, since this could eliminate a portion of
the day's federal funding specified for road patrol. In other
cases, officers become exceptionally competent in emergency response
situations, but seldom, if ever, conduct investigations, per se.
The fictional P.I.s from Lew Archer to Amos Walker and Spenser, are
usually all former police officers, who went into "private
practice" and somehow automatically just knew what to do.
Lew Archer was known for taking many weeks to locate a person and
continuing his efforts on his own time after being "fired"
from the case. Amos Walker, used to flash a police badge and
perhaps break into a house now and then, but has become more ethical
in recent years. Spenser (often working on a gratis
basis with a criminal partner) generally beats up a few suspects
along the way and in one case took his girlfriend along as a date on
a bodyguard job. These books provide great escapist
entertainment and while most people accept these stories as
fantasies, many have illogically bought into the myth that former
police officers automatically have the expertise to become a
competent private investigator. They don't.
There are, however, many excellent private investigators who came
from the public sector. Many of them specialize in fields they
learned as police officers. For instance, officers handling
arson, white collar crime, accident reconstruction or personal
protection have been able to continue their activities in the
private sector with much success. Other former officers have
recognized the differences between the private and public sector and
made the effort to learn the private investigation business.
They have frequently found the experience and intuition obtained
while working as police officers enhances their capabilities.
Others, however, do not make a successful transition. These
folks often rely on their ability to get information from old
friends still on the force, a sales tool that impresses some naive
prospects, but is seldom of any value in the real world. One
successful East Coast private investigator who is, himself, a
retired police officer is, in my opinion, irrationally prejudiced
against any former police officer who applies at his agency.
He bases this prejudice on his past private sector experiences with
this category of employees.
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