The Changing Nature of Detective Work

• In Event: Changing Styles of Provision in Frontline Police Roles in England

Abstract

The implementation of a variety of substantial reforms and patterns of change in the wider policing landscape over recent decades appear to have had a dramatic effect on the nature of criminal investigation, the role of police detectives and their occupational mandate. This paper focuses on the impact of intelligence-led policing and processes of civilianisation and privatisation on the art, craft and science of detective work in England and Wales. Drawing on the findings of an ethnographic study of detective units specialised in drug law enforcement and a mixed methods study of the roles being undertaken by non-sworn civilian investigators, it examines how these changes to the field have affected various aspects of investigative practice and led to the blurring of occupational boundaries with regard to the provision of contemporary criminal investigation. The findings call into question the sustainability of professional orthodoxies in the investigative specialism. They also reveal that many of the core characteristics of detective culture have persisted and coexist with new ways of thinking about and doing policing.

Authors

• Matthew Bacon, University of Sheffield (UK)

• Lindsey Jade Rice, University of Sheffield