Private Eye
The glamorous world of Private Investigators.
In the entertainment industry, private detectives have attained mythical status. They feature in numerous films and are the subject of countless books. We can start with Sherlock Holmes, and easily many other names come to mind: from Agatha Christies’ Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple, to Mickey Spillane’s novel I, the Jury, and Mike Hammer; from Star Treks’ holographic Private Eye to the recent CSI episodes, all follow a common thread. You could look up “detective fiction” on wikipedia for much more.
Something mysterious happened, usually involving criminal activity, and this mystery needs to be solved. Making use of all kinds of artifices, the writers take us from plot to twist, giving away leads here, laying suspicion there, only to conclude that whatever we deduced might have happened along the way, was completely and utterly wrong.
But all romanticism put aside, is the daily life of private investigators really that interesting? Judge for yourself.
How would you like to sit in your car in front of someones’ house, for hours on end, in the middle of the winter while it is freezing outside (and inside the car), while waiting for a man or woman to come out of some other house, just to make sure that you can report to this man or womans’ partner that indeed, he or she was there at that particular time? By the way, you can’t turn on the heating, for that would give away your presence and it would arouse neighbourly questions. A police patrol car might just drive up to you and ask you to leave, as your running engine is annoying someone.
How would you like to follow up on your findings, reporting to the person who wants to know and who pays you for this service that indeed, they have been cheated upon? And then later, how would you like to organize the police raid, as used to be the practice in Belgium, at 5 in the morning, when the “Gendarmerie” (compare them to Federal Agents in uniform) would almost break down the front door by banging on it loudly enough for people to wake up so they would come to open quickly?
And then accompanying these “gendarmes” straight to the bedroom, where they would “feel” both sides of the bed to measure the temperature so they could write a detailed report stating that both sides of the bed felt warm to the touch? You would have done this to obtain a legal statement of proof of adulterous behaviour for the person being cheated upon, solely to gain an advantage in court.
Maybe you would rather do old fashioned research, and apply to endless database managers for a query to a specific item; this could be a name that needs to match a birth place and date? Each of these managers have their own set of rules and laws to follow, so they will always check if you followed procedures correctly or you will not receive an answer to your question.
As you can see, the real lives of private detectives are not as glamorous as one could be led to believe. They need to be very well versed in legal procedures, police procedures and they have to be familiar with many laws the average citizen doesn’t even know exist. They have to befriend numerous government employees and keep these relationships alive.
Typically, a Private detective would have had to obtain a private investigator license after having followed training an passed a legal exam. Their tasks would include finding missing persons, investigate the theft of private or commercial property, conduct surveillance and maintain records, locate witnesses, take videos or photographs for use as evidence, conduct asset and liability checks, gather information for use in legal proceedings and provide advice on corporate and personal security.
In conclusion, private investigators are extremely adept at gathering very specific and highly detailed information. There are numerous good resources available if you want to know more,
you could visit Expert Law for example
