The Detective Career

¨Mr. Green committed murder in the pub with a bottle¨. If you like to solve mysteries, then you might find this sentence familiar. I always liked to play the game Clue because I get to solve mysteries. I want to be able to use my talent of solving mysteries in a career, and becoming a forensic scientist seems to be the perfect choice. After researching important information , such as the work environment skills required, the level of education needed, the salary and job outlook, I find myself to be highly qualified for an upcoming career in forensic science.

I have always been around people who were Investigators or police officers. I have also watched shows movies, and read books about this career with my family and friends. While my sisters were playing with dolls, house and dress up, me and my father would make up crime scenes to investigate and make entire profiles of the people we would be looking for. We would draw out maps of where the suspect was last seen and the possibilities of where they would hit next. Crime Scene Investigation has always been a large part of my life. I want to be a Crime Scene Investigator because I want to help protect people and do my part in the world while doing something I have always been interested in.

Homicide detectives require a lot of training, but this career also requires a bit of schooling. In order to be a homicide detective a person must have a high school diploma. After that their is a requirement of three years as a patrol officer. To become a police officer there is also the police academy training. From there they would have to work up and then have a commanding officer put in a request to be put on the homicide division. Although homicide detective is a career, it is not a guaranteed job.

This Career makes a national average of a annual salary of $52,703-$78,856.96 per year at $27.08 an hour. The initial pay of of a Forensic scientist starts at $20 and can go up to $30+. According to the (“Forensic Science Tech Summary”) the pay goes up by experience and time devoted to your career and department. So the more experienced you are the more your pay increases.Some similar careers. For example a Biochemist or physicist make around $82,000 a year. Biochemists study organisms and conduct research and experiments. While physicists study physics in depthly and its

Detectives have made good salaries and wages. Detectives have made a median salary of $74,300 and the top of detectives have made about $93,400 in 2012. “The 10th percentile of detectives in Ohio made a yearly salary of $41,270, the 50th percentile of detectives in Ohio have averaged $62,460, the 90th percentile of detectives in Ohio have made $93,350.”(Learn.) The salary can be increased by putting in extra time in the career, because of paid overtime that most police departments offer to the people in this career path. The averages of salary are widely different in each state and are not close in differences of money.

In the Bronx, there are countless of unsolved crime at the police department precinct, just waiting to be solved. However, due to the shortage of policeman power in the precincts located in the Bronx, and with many detectives with a caseload of about 300 to 400 cases per year, it’s impossible for the detectives to keep-up. According to the deployment analysis obtained by The New York Times most of the detective have a caseload of twice as the recommended for precincts with such high violence rate with the department. “The Times's deployment analysis grew out of a series of articles about murder in the 40th Precinct, a two-square-mile section of the South Bronx, where three detectives last year carried more than 400 cases and many others had loads in the high 300's, markedly more than the 150 cases per year the department recommends for precincts with high rates of violent crime.”

When we were little, we thought the word “Career” was not a big deal, but as a senior in high school the word has become our reality as we start to finish our last semester. The question we’ve been asked all these years was what do you want to be when you grow up? But our answer was simple; we don’t want to grow up. As an innocent kid it seemed like the time would never come, but it has. It’s time to get serious and really ponder on this question. My mind has wondered for so long on what my career would be. We all wanted to be an astronaut, but I never liked space or the fact of not having any gravity. What if I get lost in the universe? Maybe I’ll be a firefighter, but I never was interested. Well how about a cop? That’s it, a police

When you see the shows such as Homicide Hunter or Killer Instincts many times my mom and I try to figure out who is the murder. Most of the time my prediction is right because of the details my mom misses, and putting together all the clues. From then on I realised I had a gift, even if it was I was just watching television show. That is what sparked my interest the criminal justice area. I have contemplated the career choices that would best fit my interest leaving me with Homicide Detective and Criminologist. While both careers deal with criminal justice they differ greatly in the type of work environment, pay, skills/education.

The reason why is because that helps me go back and analyze what happened. I also like investigating: I like to think beyond the things that actually happened. This will really help me in becoming a crime scene investigator because you have to record everything you see and you have to collect evidence. You have to think beyond what you see because you have to try to find the person that did it. The entry level salary range of $30,000- $40,000 depending on the agency. To be honest I don’t really look at it for the money, this is something that I want to do, it what I like. (Goodman, & Grimming, 2007)

“FBI” is an abbreviation for 'Federal Bureau of Investigation’. The FBI is the oldest and maybe even the most “famous” law enforcement agency. According to COBUILD Advanced English Dictionary, “The FBI is a government agency in the United States that investigates crimes in which a national law is broken or in which the country's security is threatened.” In the FBI, there are several different paths that can be taken to best suit an individual's interest; special agent, profiler, forensics, intelligence analysis, behavioral analysis, and many other specific fields. Each field requires different training, with individual studies. The FBI is a very tough and competitive career. It takes hard work and dedication in all career fields of the FBI, to become an FBI agent.

Criminal justice provides such a wide variety of subjects that finding a job in the industry is relatively easy it also affords criminal justice students a wide leeway when they are searching for jobs. Criminal justice degree jobs can range from law enforcement to the judicial arena, allowing students to pick and choose how much education they wish to fulfill over the course of their lives. Many choose to go the law route and spend a few more years in law school to become defense attorneys while others realize they can use their criminal justice degree in the courthouse without a J.D. by simply becoming a court reporter, court coordinator, clerk, or bailiff. While these jobs all require experience, it’s not as demanding as becoming a defense

For my career I chose to do FBI field agent. I want to do this because I always wanted to do something with the government. My mom worked with the government and got to meet tons of celebrities. My brother-in-law is in special forces and told me some things he did that I think is interesting.

I’m interested in the law enforcement career path, and there are a lot of different paths you could take in this career choice. This career got my attention mainly because, I find solving mysteries and crimes very intriguing. The origin of this occupation came in during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, coming into America from England. “Generally speaking, the constable became responsible for law enforcement in the towns, while the sheriff took responsibility for the counties” (Stinchcomb 3). The educational requirements for this occupation at a minimum are as high school diploma or GED. Our high school provides us with a forensics class you can take your senior year, and we have an athletics department that you could join anytime

“Employment of detectives is projected to grow 5% from 2012 to 2022, slower than any other occupation.” (Criminal Justice Jobs) In other words, it would be difficult to obtain this career because of the duration of employment of current detectives. However, detectives held about 780,000 jobs in 2012. Also there are many alternatives besides becoming a detective. These careers include: private detectives, federal investigators, and crime scene investigators.

1A. A good detective is a very smart person who is able to use evidence and to detect lies and truth. And is also able to think things in a logic and quicker way as well as understanding criminal's movements. For example, detective Dupin in the "Murders of the Rue Morgue" from how the bones were broken and how a lot of hair was pulled out, he figured out that the criminal was not a human, but rather an criminal(Orangutan). "I proceeded to think thus—à posteriori. The murderers did escape from one of these windows. This being so, they could not have refastened the sashes from the inside, as they were found fastened; — the consideration which put a stop, through its obviousness, to the scrutiny of the police in this quarter. Yet the sashes were fastened. They must, then, have the power of fastening themselves. There was no escape from this conclusion." I have seen the character of detectives evolve from one author to the next by having a brilliant life in Doyle's novel "The Sign of the four" to love as in Rampo's "Beast in the Shadows. In "The Sign of the Four" it said, "I cannot live without brain-work. What else is there to live for?" In the "Beast in the Shadows" it said, "Thus, I fell for her completely, sending her meaningless on a frequent basis." Doyle's, Rampo's, Gaboriau's, Christie's, and Borges's fiction character and plot were similar as Poe's detective and plot. Therefore, they do depend on earlier models. In respect, Gaboriau aims to glorify or support the French police while it said, “Well done, Goulard!" quoth the commissary, approvingl;” Poe has a contemptuous attitude towards the agency. I believe that Gaboriau got the idea from Poe, but did the opposite from what I see, I could definitely tell that Poe deserves the title "One of American Greatest Storyteller" because so many authors followed his example of how to write a detective novel. Which shows that his writing impact others to write detective novels.