Senior Career Research Paper: Homicide Detectives

Introduction for the Senior Career Research Paper The hectic streets of a busy city, car headlights streaming through like northern lights dodging and weaving through the crowds of pedestrians. The symphony of blaring vehicle honks and angry road ragers, the song of a mentally deranged attempting to prepare others of soon upcoming doomsday. I will be overlooking all this through my office on the upper floor of a skyscraper with a wall entirely made of glass, giving me a perfect bird’s eye view. I won’t have much time for gawking though, as I will be hard at work, on a mission to articulate the perfect case for the upcoming court date. I plan on this being a typical night for me in the future, I plan on pursuing the career of a homicide
Contemplating this, detectives require a strong head to keep them from falling apart. Detectives must be extremely detailed and tedious in their work because if they aren’t they could miss a small clue that could provide a big break in a case. Being under constant pressure is another condition they must work in. People want justice and are relying on someone to solve the crime and provide that for them and the person responsible for that is a detective. It is a huge undertaking for this occupation when it comes to responsibility. I interviewed Lee McColly, a police officer in Jacksonville who was kind enough to answer a few questions so that I could get a grasp on what it is like to be an officer, considering that it is required that a detective first be one before they can start the career. He explains the daily duties like basic patrol which includes looking for criminal activities and keeping the area safe. In addition to that there is traffic control which is just making sure all vehicles are abiding by the traffic laws and issuing warnings or citations if they are breaking them. Then there is criminal investigation, where he investigates petty theft, identity theft, burglary and fraud of different types. Officer McColly says that a majority of the job is public assists, where he is called to help someone who has called for help and that you never know what you’re going to get called for. He tells me that their overall goal of the police department is to protect the public and that is the main objective. I then asked about the amount of hours a police officer usually works, he tells me that hours are very odd and unpredictable and there is no set schedule, you can even get ordered in on your