Editing Police (section)

===Detectives===
[[File:Oklahoma City Police Homicide Detectives.jpeg|thumb|[[Oklahoma City Police Department]] detectives in "plainclothes" attire investigating a [[homicide]] [[crime scene]]]]
Police [[detective]]s are responsible for investigations and detective work. Detectives may be called Investigations Police, Judiciary/Judicial Police, or Criminal Police. In the United Kingdom, they are often referred to by the name of their department, the [[Criminal Investigation Department]]. Detectives typically make up roughly 15–25% of a police service's personnel.

Detectives, in contrast to uniformed police, typically wear business-styled attire in bureaucratic and investigative functions, where a uniformed presence would be either a distraction or intimidating but a need to establish police authority still exists. "Plainclothes" officers dress in attire consistent with that worn by the general public for purposes of blending in.

In some cases, police are assigned to work "[[undercover]]", where they conceal their police identity to investigate crimes, such as [[organized crime]] or [[narcotic]]s crime, that are unsolvable by other means. In some cases, this type of policing shares aspects with [[espionage]].

The relationship between detective and uniformed branches varies by country. In the United States, there is high variation within the country itself. Many American police departments require detectives to spend some time on temporary assignments in the patrol division.{{Citation needed|date=July 2008}}<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Barnes|first=James|title=The benefits of implementing a rotating detective position|journal=Huntsville Police Department}}</ref> The argument is that rotating officers helps the detectives to better understand the uniformed officers' work, to promote [[cross-training]] in a wider variety of skills, and prevent "cliques" that can contribute to corruption or other unethical behavior.{{Citation needed|date=July 2008}} Conversely, some countries regard detective work as being an entirely separate profession, with detectives working in separate agencies and recruited without having to serve in uniform. A common compromise in English-speaking countries is that most detectives are recruited from the uniformed branch, but once qualified they tend to spend the rest of their careers in the detective branch.

Another point of variation is whether detectives have extra status. In some forces, such as the [[New York Police Department]] and [[Philadelphia Police Department]], a regular detective holds a higher rank than a regular police officer. In others, such as [[Law enforcement in the United Kingdom|British police]] and [[Law enforcement in Canada|Canadian police]], a regular detective has equal status with regular uniformed officers. Officers still have to take exams to move to the detective branch, but the move is regarded as being a specialization, rather than a promotion.