How To Attract More Detectives

The detective role needs to be made more attractive, but that doesn’t necessarily mean a pay incentive, South Yorkshire Police Federation has said.

The Police Federation National Detectives’ Forum, held in March, discussed the shortage of detectives across the country, as well as the new official accreditation for detectives, the MSc in Investigation Practice.

South Yorkshire Police Federation Chair Steve Kent said: “The main thing is that our detectives need the space, support, resilience and time to do their job properly. Detectives work ridiculously long hours under extreme circumstances. They often feel they haven’t got the time to do the job that they want to do, as it can take a slow and methodical approach.

“We need to put proper resourcing into detectives to make the job more appealing. Twenty years ago, people were jumping over each other to get to be detectives; now we’re the other way round.”

But pay incentives weren’t necessarily the best way to attract detectives, Steve said, as it could create a division with other policing jobs.

He said: “I would be more open to a national drive, not just for South Yorkshire, to encourage people to do detective courses.

“If there is an incentive, I think it should only be at the point of joining. I don’t think people should be paid more than others in different roles, because the role of a response officer, a firearms officer with the risks that entails, a detective, a traffic officer, who are some of the most highly stressed officers in the country, all have their own challenges and I don’t want to recognise some more than others.”