Expert: Jack Toomey - 9/7/2008

Question
Hi Jack, I have been looking into the whole "SVU detective" thing for quite some time now. I am only 15, and I am just starting my sophomore year in high school, but I am one of those people who likes to be prepared for anything and everything, and so, AS SOON AS I GRADUATE, I want to get a jumpstart on my career.
2 of my best friends have been assaulted sexually in the past, and, of course, I watch law and order (I'm sure that everyone who wants to be and SVU detective does) and it just really inspires me to do something about all of the sex crimes. And I want to do everything in my power to prevent all these children/teenagers from being sexually assaulted/abused.
 And I do understand that I can't just graduate high school and go to a special victims unit and just apply and boom there it is..but I am seriously just SO SET ON BECOMING AN SVU DETECTIVE I don't think that anyone or anything is going to stop me..as long as I have all the correct information. And I do believe you told someone that you must be a regualr police officer, working the streets, first. I do understand that is where it all begins, and I also understand that you must have so many years of college and I'm assuming so many courses of psychology. But how many years do you have to do the whole Police Officer thing? And where do you go from there after you've gained all the experience you need?

 Thank You for your time, I hope to hear from you soon.

Answer
Sara,

   It is good that this may be your chosen career path but there some things that you should know.

    Don't believe anything that you see on a televsion show.  In other words there are very few things that are realistic on shows like CSI, SVU, etc, etc.  If they made a tv show about what really happens in police work then no one would watch.  So they have to throw in unrealitic things and invent units that don't exist.

    Only the largest police departments have a unit such as SVU.  In fact I have never heard of a police department that has such a unit. Now do detectives do similar work? Of course but they are detectives first and help victims secondly.  So it is very doubtful that any detective would have the time to be working solely with a victim.  There would not be enough time because a detective has a desk full of cases.

    You are correct.  You can't graduate from high school and the next day be sitting in the desk of a detective.  You will be going on to college, getting a degree, and then making your career choice.  If it is police work you will go through a rigorous hiring process that could take months or even a year and includes a thorough background check, oral interviews, physical tests, and on and on.  If you make it through this process you will go to the police academy where the dropout rate is about 10 to 20% and then go to a precinct station where you will spend years in uniform learning the necessary skills that you will need later on in police work.  Some officers, once they spend a few years on the street, want to do that for the rest of their lives and forget about wanting to go into detectives, SWAT, etc.
But there is no set time limit for anything and the main reason is that there are thousands of police departments from the smallest to the huge departments like in New York City.  Every single one has its own standards and rules.

  Don't worry about what classes you select.  That is the biggest misconception out there.  What is important is that you have a degree.  No one in any police department cares what you took in your sophmore year of college or in high school.  Your classroom is the street and that is where you learn how to deal with people.

  To end I cannot stress this more.  Do not believe anything that you see on a dramatic police show.  It does not happen that way.