Effective Detective

SKILL AC Q U I S I T I O N, SELECTION AND THE FUTURE ENVIRONMENT FOR SIOs●●●Financial restrictionsMany officers believed that budgets for serious crime investigations will in thefuture be more constrained, and that costing and resource issues will becomeincreasingly important for the SIO. Therefore, SIOs will need to become moreskilled in certain areas relevant to resource management (e.g. negotiation, riskassessment and financial management).Involvement in different crime typesA frequently mentioned point was that SIOs will become more involved withthe investigation of different and possibly specialist types of major crime (e.g.crimes relating to gang activities). Several interviewees believed that SIOs willbecome more involved in internal enquiries relating to the investigation ofallegations of police corruption. It was argued that SIOs should therefore betrained in a number of specific areas to deal with these challenges (e.g. covertsurveillance techniques and the appropriate use of both informants andintelligence).AccountabilityHigh profile cases in the media recently have demonstrated that the police mustbe seen to be responding appropriately within major crime investigations.Challenges to the way that the police investigate crime and their duty of careare likely to increase, from both within the police service and by the public. Asmedia interest has grown in serious crime investigations, so has public criticismof some investigators. Interviewees were acutely aware that they now operate inan environment of accountability where their actions and decisions aretransparent to all. Consequently, the potential of civil litigation against SIOsand the public scrutiny of police investigations, are issues that need to beaddressed by police forces. Some interviewees saw the move towardsaccountability as a positive one. They saw it as an opportunity for SIOs todemonstrate that what they do is not based upon intuition, but rational thoughtprocesses. However, there was concern that the need to be publicly andinternally accountable has led to fewer officers wanting to become SIOs. As aresult of this, many of those who took part in this study wanted to see moresupport from ACPO. One way this could be achieved is by ensuring thatmembers of ACPO possess a clear understanding of the way that major enquiriesare run and the role of the SIO in particular. Relevant serious crime experiencewas seen as imperative for some officers within ACPO. This has been recognisedby the ACPO Crime Committee Homicide Working Group, which is currently52