Criminal Justice is an amazing field. One of the advantageous and attractive conditions about the profession is that you have a good number of job and career choices. You have the opportunity of not being stuck in one job throughout your whole career and one of those opportunities is that of being a Private Investigator which in itself can offer a number of different and sometimes exciting roles. This article is devoted to that one sector of a career within the criminal justice service.
To take a look at the role of the private investigator in the criminal justice field, we need to understand and appreciate the interpretation of the words Private Investigator.
The word private in this sense usually means working alone. Only very occasionally would you work in tandem with another party regardless of the task you undertake. Most people interpret the word 'private' as meaning being engaged by a private individual outside of the recognised criminal justice system, that is outside of the police or any other government law enforcement organisation.
The word investigator suggests somebody who performs detailed research and searches for the facts. Facts are needed to support a point somebody is attempting to make. Without these types of facts, the person may not be able to substantiate their point of view beyond reasonable doubt. To help the individual prove their point beyond reasonable doubt the work of a private investigator is vital, for through their efforts and skill in uncovering facts a point will be substantiated or fail to stand up.
So to put them together, the private investigator operates on behalf of individuals who need to prove their point of view to police groups or other governmental law enforcement services, when the individual lacks the skills to carry out the work themselves. Of course private investigators are also called in by corporations who want to gather evidence on perhaps an employee, or a private individual who wants evidence that proves a partner is being unfaithful. Insurance companies also use the services of private investigators if they suspect that a policy holder has made a fraudulent claim. The private investigator may spend months working on a case drawing together the facts that they will present to the people or organisations that employ them so that they can decide if their suspicions were justified or not.