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The police killing of George Floyd and other high-profile incidents of force sparked massive protests around the world. Amidst eroding public perceptions of police legitimacy, politicians and activists have sought to achieve systemic change. Over the past year, several cities in the United States have implemented various police reform initiatives, including reallocating resources, cutting budgets, and downsizing specialized units. As a result of these changes, the “defund the police” movement may have far-reaching consequences on police culture, especially within specialized units most affected by budget and resource changes. Furthermore, as fentanyl overdoses are surging and the American opioid crisis continues, specialized drug investigation units face a host of challenges in responding to increases in drug-related crime in the aftermath of “defund the police”. Therefore, this study aims to examine the experiences of a Drug Investigation Section in a large metropolitan city.

This study uses data from semi-structured interviews conducted between October 2021 to May 2022. The results of this study provide a thematic analysis that explores the narcotics detectives' perceptions of key features of police culture, as well as how current challenges affect those perceptions.

Key features of the police culture were noticeably absent from detectives' responses, including an overemphasis on danger, machismo, conservatism, and social isolation. Elements of cynicism, group solidarity, and a mission/action-orientation, did emerge. The context of “defund the police” did little to alter their perceptions, except for heightening cynicism and negative perceptions of politicians and prosecutors (a form of “us vs them”, but not involving citizens). The interviews also revealed various other changes that have occurred in recent years that have adversely affected the section's traditional investigative capabilities, especially with regard to illicit fentanyl distribution, though the addition of an intelligence analyst minimized those negative effects.

This study adds to the scarce research on contemporary police culture in specialized units, especially in the aftermath of the “defund the police” movement, providing a glimpse into its context within a drug investigation section and its potential effects on police culture and narcotics investigations.

In 2016, the oversight body for policing in England and Wales reported a national shortage of 5,000 qualified detectives and other investigators. Commissioned by the National Police Chiefs Council, this research critically assessed initiatives taken by the Police Service of England and Wales since that time to remedy that shortfall. The purpose of this study is to answer the question, “To what extent can fast-track investigator recruitment and training schemes enhance the PSEW’s investigative capacity and capability?”

Between 2019 and 2020, the authors examined four cases in England and Wales. Three were novel fast-track programmes for new joiners. The fourth was an investigator resilience programme. This study was qualitative and interpretive in nature. The authors carried out systematic reviews of the literature on investigative policy and detective work. The authors reviewed internal evaluations completed by Forces A, B and C. The authors interviewed respondents (n = 82) and supplemented the interview data with survey data (n = 45; N = 127); the authors analysed the data thematically and reviewed the findings in the context of systems theory and social identity theory.

The major themes identified by the analysis presented in this study were marketing and recruitment, attrition and progression, acceptance of the trainees, training and trainees’ welfare and well-being. The programmes were not as successful as they might have been because of systems failures. Principally, ineffective coordination of the programmes with other elements of the forces on which their success also relied (such as training, human resources and detective, departments). A critical limiting factor was the lack of experienced, skilled detectives able to train, support and mentor the trainees.

This paper provides empirical evidence of the efficacy of a whole systems approach to organisational change. This study evidences the crisis in police investigative practice that limits the service that the police can provide to victims and communities and ultimately threatens police legitimacy. This study provides insights from police practitioners into detective work in the modern era and highlights areas where improvement is necessary. The research on which this study is based was commissioned by the National Police Chiefs Council. Thus, there is institutional buy in to its findings.

With its roots firmly in empiricism, this paper presents the first scholarly evaluation of the police's attempts to make up a massive shortfall in investigators. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper presents the first attempt to explain the challenges the police faced in this context, thematically. This study’s focus on systems and on human behaviour is intended to inform a wide audience beyond British policing.

The purpose of this paper is to describe and to research cooperation between the police and other relevant government organizations. The subject of this paper is cooperation between Criminal Investigation Department (CID) detectives and workers at the Social Service Centers (SSC), representatives of Prosecutor's office, Court Investigation Departments, Attorneys‐at‐Law, workers at the administrative units, Market Inspectorate and Labor Inspectorate and tax authorities in Slovenia. The goal of this paper is to establish whether there is a correlation between forms of cooperation and satisfaction with cooperation among CID detectives and representatives of these various organizations with work relationship.

A study is conducted on a sample of 314 representatives of various organizations that CID detectives work within. A non‐experimental research design is used, the method of work is a field study, and the research technology is a questionnaire. Gathered data are analyzed with the help of SPSS for Windows performing descriptive statistic, factor analysis, analysis of variance and correlation analysis.

Findings show that there is connection between formal cooperation (FC), informal cooperation (IC) and satisfaction with cooperation between CID detectives and representatives of various organizations. Representatives of organizations have evaluated cooperation with CID detectives as good. They also indicate that representatives of various organizations are evaluating both forms of cooperation differently.

Results are presenting assessment of cooperation and relationship between CID detectives and representatives of studied organizations that CID detectives work within offered by workers at the SSC, representatives of Prosecutor's office, Court Investigation Departments, Attorneys‐at‐Law, Workers at the Administrative Units, representatives of various inspectorate and tax authorities. For further complex evaluation of relations, the opinion of detectives cooperating in this matter would have needed to be obtained.

The main implications of the paper for managers in studied organizations are that they are encouraging different shapes of FC and IC between CID detectives and employees in those organizations, which should be based on ethical criteria and professionalism.

This paper deepens understanding of cooperation between CID detectives and remaining organizations and should be of particular interest to people who want to improve cooperation between all organizations.

Police officers are exposed to a wide variety of stressors – frequently interacting with people at their worst moments and sometimes absorbing the trauma that victims experience themselves. Investigating sexual assaults reported by adults presents significant challenges given the often high levels of distress experienced by victims paired with the likelihood that no arrest will be made and the low conviction rates. Little research explores the impact this investigatory work has on the detectives who are assigned to these cases.

Using interviews conducted with 42 sexual assault detectives across six jurisdictions designed to understand sexual assault case attrition, the study enhances understanding of the effects of investigating crimes of sexual violence on detectives. Specifically, the aurhors explore their experiences within the context of burnout and secondary traumatic stress.

The current study clearly identifies the incidence of emotional symptoms among sexual assault investigators. During the course of interviews about their decision-making, detectives, unprompted by researchers, manifested symptoms of trauma resulting from their assigned caseloads.

Open-ended interviews offer a promising approach to exploring foundational questions.

Exposure to victims who have suffered the trauma of sexual assault can have a subsequent impact on the job performance and personal life of those who respond to victims in immediate crisis and to those who provide long-term assistance. A plan for future research is detailed to better pinpoint how and when these symptoms arise and interventions that may address their effects.

While there is a large literature detailing vicarious trauma for social workers, nurses and doctors, the topic is generally understudied among police officers and specifically detectives despite their repeated contacts with adult victims of violent crimes. This research builds upon the knowledge of burnout experienced by child maltreatment detectives to enhance understanding of sexual assault detectives.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how both offenders and their families perceived their interactions with police and whether there were negative consequences of the offender-focused strategy that was implemented in a hot spots policing experiment.

Data from interviews of 32 offenders and 29 family members are examined qualitatively for themes to evaluate how the strategy was carried out and how it impacted offenders’ behavior and both groups’ perceptions of the police detectives and the strategy overall.

The results show that there was overwhelming agreement by both offenders and their family members that the police detectives who contacted them treated both groups with dignity and respect. After the contact was over, the offenders appeared to commit less crime, followed probation more closely, and had positive feelings about what the police detectives were trying to do. Improvement of the offenders’ relationships with their families was an unanticipated finding indicating a diffusion of benefits of the strategy.

The results suggest that when procedural justice principles are used in an offender-focused police intervention, positive impact can be achieved without negative consequences.

This is a rare example of an in-depth evaluation of the perceptions of offenders and family members contacted through a hot spots policing offender-focused strategy.

The purpose of this paper is to explore investigative decision-making processes in the context of major crimes as experienced by the law enforcement agents.

Episodic interviews were conducted with six agents from medium-sized police forces in the UK. Following the framework of naturalistic inquiry, qualitative content analysis took place with the assistance of Atlas.ti software. To ensure the validity of findings, the within method triangulation was preferred, by additionally analysing the interview transcripts with Alceste.

Findings from this study revealed a variety of internal factors at play, shaping the decision-making course into an act of balancing various desired goals. Detectives appear to assess a situation based on their experiences confirming that the naturalistic decision-making model may assist in understanding investigative decision-making.

Due to the busy schedule of law enforcement agents the number of participants was limited and availability difficult; therefore, this study can be thought of as a pilot study that will inspire researchers to use the same method for in-depth understanding of investigative decision-making.

Results captured the ill-defined goals in the police environment and provided ways of decreasing their impact on investigative decision-making thus should help detectives to understand their decision-making limitations and strengths.

This project will enhance the psychological understanding of investigative decision-making.

This project assists in understanding the psychological aspect of investigative decision-making during police duty and provides the opportunity to law enforcement agents to re-evaluate situations in order to improve the investigative decision-making process; while adds to existing literature.

The study aims to examine the effect of detective experience on the likelihood of clearing a homicide, while controlling for additional extralegal and case/investigative characteristics.

This study uses homicide and policing data collected from case files in a mid-sized US city. Detective experience is measured in multiple ways. Analytical models include extralegal variables, case characteristics, and proxies of investigative quality as controls. The study uses logistic regression with a dichotomous clearance outcome.

The results suggest a robust and significant inverse relationship between the years spent as a homicide detective and the likelihood of case closure. However, years of experience with the department overall has a significant and positive relationship to clearance. Investigation-related variables and case characteristics contribute more to model explanatory power than extralegal factors.

The potential role of experience has not been fully explored, with contradictory findings over time. This work builds on previous research to highlight the potential role of experience in clearing cases, while questioning previous assumptions tied to the belief that more experience improves investigative outcomes.

The purpose of this paper is to suggest two things: first, that the scientific and technological developments and increased regulation that have shaped homicide investigations in England and Wales over the last few decades have provided today’s investigators with opportunities not available to their predecessors, and play a key role in solving unsolved homicides. Second, however, the authors suggest that such developments have created new challenges for investigators, challenges that impede current investigations, potentially creating the future unsolved cases.

This paper draws on two qualitative studies that comprised over eight months of ethnographic research, observations, interviews with serving and retired homicide detectives and case file analysis.

The widespread changes to homicide investigations in England and Wales have been valuable in many respects, notably, they have allowed detectives to look back in time and bring longstanding unsolved cases to a close. However, change, although well intentioned, might actually be creating future cold cases as detectives endeavour to manage the volume of information now generated during investigations, fast evolving scientific and technological techniques and an increase in bureaucracy.

This study is helpful for: improving investigative practice; learning from change; reducing unsolved homicides vs a rise in new cold cases; and innovative and entrepreneurial investigators.

Utilising qualitative research, this paper contributes to the academic literature exploring homicide investigation in England and Wales, offering insight into the challenges facing detectives and the potential impact of these upon solving past and present homicide cases.

The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize detectives in police investigations as knowledge workers.

The paper is based on a literature review covering knowledge organizations, police organizations, police investigations, and detectives as knowledge workers.

The paper finds that the changing role of the detective as a resource influences investigation performance in solving complex and organized crime.

This exploratory research provides no final conclusions.

Leadership in police investigations needs to focus on knowledge management among detectives rather than information collection in each criminal case.

Until this paper, the secretive nature of the detective world has been unexplored by manpower researchers.