steve862 wrote:
• You will want to feel like these 'sacrifices' which you make were worth it and continue to be. If you make a difference it is very rewarding but if you find yourself getting bogged down in management structures and internal change management, which will inevitably happen, you will need to be aware of how you might feel you aren't achieving what you came into this field to achieve.
• You will need to be pretty flexible in terms of your personal life. Be prepared to cancel holidays in extreme circumstances because you are needed at court, they can't do it without you but unfortunately they forgot to warn you. Be prepared to work long hours from time to time, or be called in at a moment's notice for something urgent. The job is one of the most invasive jobs you can have. I do not post here often so apologies if anyone feels I am jumping in a bit but this is a very interesting and valuable topic for people looking at a DF career so I thought I would add something!
Steve I think your post is excellent but I quoted a couple of points just to add my perspective from working in LE for 5 years but having now moved to something more corporate.
The first point I couldn't agree more with and whilst I cannot speak for all police forces in the UK this was part of my decision to leave the HTCU I worked for. It has got to the point now that the IIOC (Indecent Images of Children) work is so overwhelming in quantity and scale that management are primarily interested in number massaging and backlog decreasing, by any method. This has developed a purely sausage factory esque approach to IIOC cases, where the minimum to achieve a basic prosecution is found and in some cases nothing more. Whilst I understand the need to get backlogs down and speed up the investigation process, this is not something I was comfortable with or was willing to be part of anymore. I am not suggesting that this happens in all cases and I have no doubt that those with solid intelligence involving distribution, contact offences etc are thoroughly investigated. However it is my personal view that many offences are being missed, through no fault of the examiner/investigator, purely because of a desire to make the numbers look better.
The second point I believe is also very valid, however from my experience I never had to cancel leave/holidays due to court commitments. Anything were the DF was integral (i.e. all IIOC cases) I was always involved in the court process from fairly early on so I expected to be needed if a not guilty plea is entered and was warned accordingly. This is not to say that last minute calls to court couldn’t force the cancellation of leave/holidays but I just wanted to point out that in my experience this never happened so should not be a major factor in dissuading someone from a DF career (if it may do that). Obviously I could just have been lucky <img src="images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif" alt="Very Happy" title="Very Happy" />
In general I never had issues with investigating IIOC cases but obviously everyone is different. I found the work interesting and often very rewarding. I will say though that I am glad I no longer deal with them, although I would not rule out investigating them in the future but maybe on a more limited scale to what the police have to deal with.
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