Service must entice officers to become detectives

THE service must do more to entice police officers to take on a role in investigation if it is to properly deal with the national detectives’ crisis, Essex Police Federation has warned.

The Met has recently introduced direct entry for investigators, meaning people from outside the service can be recruited straight into detective roles.

However, this would not necessarily work for Essex, according to Steve Taylor, Federation Chairman.

He said: “We do struggle to recruit and retain detectives here in Essex. And we will watch with interest what happens in the Met. If you look at some of the more specialist areas of detective work – computer-based investigation, financial and forensics – there’s a strong line to suggest experts from outside the service could be useful.

“However, the fact that we have a serious lack of homegrown detectives is quite telling. People don’t want to be detectives any more.

“It’s not inspiring enough people and we are not able to train enough of our own. So we need to understand why the role is not attracting people. Simply parachuting people in is short sighted. It does nothing to address long term retention and it erodes the role of the omni-skilled constable.”

The Met launched its direct entry programme in October last year and received 87 applicants. It opened up applications for graduates with no prior policing experience to go straight into CID last month. The move features in a strategy from police chiefs drawn up in response to the fact people “no longer expect policing to be a job for life”.

Earlier this year HMIC described the shortage of detectives across England and Wales as a “national crisis”. In a report published in March, it said victims of crime were being let down, emergency calls downgraded and investigations shelved by forces.