2006-11-21 13:03:15 · 6 answers · asked by joseph r 1 in Politics & Government ➔ Law Enforcement & Police
Police departments are very much like the military (they are even called paramilitary).
They have ranks officer, corporal, sergeant, lieutenant, captain etc.
Some agencies have detectives who are corporals, others have them as a separate rank.
Detectives themselves are people who are assigned to do the detective work for the agency (like traffic officers are assigned to deal with traffic matters). Most of the answers about them being specially assigned is right for the larger departments, for the smaller ones, the detective is a jack of all trades.
Basically, they do most of the follow up on those situations that require a little more time than the original officer on the scene could provide (like interview more witnesses, collect evidence, attend autopsies etc.) They also work more closely with the prosecutors if the case is filed in court.
Hope this helps!
2006-11-21 14:55:03 · answer #1 · answered by grim reaper 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The department I work at this are divided like this. You have the officers that work the road called the patrol officers. They are the ones that take the calls for service or take the reports for the criminal activity taking place in the city. These reports get forwarded to a detective. The detectives are responsible for certain parts of the city and for certain types of crimes. They take the initial report and continue on with the investigation and hopefully, eventually have someone arrested for the crime.
2006-11-21 13:09:26 · answer #2 · answered by Sheila V 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Police officers are first response officials. Detectives investigate and study the evidence in reaction to the first response.
2006-11-21 13:07:28 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
what do they do? Is that the real question? Police detectives are usually assigned an area of expertise: Homicide, People Crimes, SVU or equivalent, Property Crimes, etc. Detectives are the ones who investigate crimes. Most street cops don't have time to do conduct anything more than a cursory investigation.
2006-11-21 13:08:14 · answer #4 · answered by Mr. PhD 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
They are usually plain clothes specialists who investigate crimes like murder, rape, robbery, child abuse, etc.Regular patrol officers just do the initial stuff at a crime scene, detectives do the actual investigation work.
2006-11-21 23:07:50 · answer #5 · answered by WC 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
they are the officers that investigate criminal matters
2006-11-21 13:21:16 · answer #6 · answered by jojo 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋