I am a newbie and I did a search before posing question and I don't see a proper thread for it, but I beg forgivness if I missed this being answered before or I put this in the wrong place...

Does anyone know proper police procedure for how G&E or L&F would really get assigned cases in real life? Do cases get assigned in alternating order or is it given to whoever is on shift when the case comes in or maybe who ever has the lightest case load?

Just curious.

That is a good question...welcome to the boards...I will see what I can find out...

Law and Order

Here is what Wikipedia has to say about Law and Order. It doesn't say about what detectives get what. But it does say what Major Case should get, even though Law and Order CI Major Case doesn't really follow those rules.

Welcome! I also think who is on shift at the time. K

Don't know how it is in the REAL world, but seems its who ever show it is and funny how they always seem to be working on only one case at a time. Wouldn't it be nice to see them shuffle through two or three cases. Like Ross ask them where are you on the Art case, Bank Case, Murder case, or such. Just to give us the feeling they have more than one case that they are working on.

On Homicide: Life on the Streets, whichever detective answers the phone is the lead detective on the case. And they did a good job of giving us the impression they were working on more than one case with the board and the names of victims in black or red. Every department probably has its own way of distributing cases. I'll ask my sister next time I talk to her (she is retired from the Sheriff's dept.), but this is a small county and probably has very little in common with the NYPD.

Ok...I have an answer to your question...The big cities are usually where you will find detectives and the units broken down as far as the L&O series has done it...My friend said that the crime is broken down by criteria of what is involved...ie. drug related stuff goes to Vice, rape goes to SVU, Homicide goes to homicide or major case etc...it all depends on the severity of the crime...and as far as who gets the next case coming in the door, it is who ever is catching gets the next case...if it is a small town the regular cops handle everything unless someone comes in and takes over...small towns do not have the money or man-power to have all those police departments...I hope I answered your question...

Does anyone watch the First 48 on A&E? I love that show. It seems like they don't have a "partner" but switch around. Also, it seems that they work more than one case at a time and when there's a "break" in one, then that will take precidence.
I was wondering if anyone knew how their hours/shifts are scheduled? I know that beat cops rotate 8 hour shifts. So maybe for a month you work 8am to 4pm, and then the next month you might work 12am to 8am, etc. I don't know if these detectives do that or not...

I would ask my cop friend about it...but he is working nights this weekend...as soon as I can I will try and find out for you...I never saw the "First 48" but I heard it was good...

I love The First 48! Somewhere on another thread I said that I got all excited watching it one night because one of the detectives had a big black leather notebook like Bobby's. Maybe he watches CI, too!

I saw that! It was awesome!

Thanks for all of the info!

I also watch The First 48 and I saw once that the PM shift caught a case and the AM shift picked it up and started working it. I definately agree that detectives work more than one case at a time. I think L&O focuses on one case for "TV reasons".

I am also curious like cluck73 about the shifts. There have been references about "shift change" on CI. The first that comes to mind is the S2 epi about the guy who could not feel fear, can't think of the title at the moment. But it seems that G&E work whatever hours they need (like like the rest of us I guess).

Also, it sounds like all cities and departments handel it differently.

I don't know if the difference comes from city to city, but it definately comes into play in small towns versus the city where they don't have the funding to pay all of those cops that make up the different units...

At least in Las Vegas, it all depends on who is around. Traffic/Patrol cops take the call on who is closest, ie dispatch calls a unit(s) to respond to a crime. Not neccassarly the first to arrive. Once it is decided by a Sgt or above that a special unit is needed, the call goes into dispatch. And once again, who ever is the Detective on duty for the applicable department, and their case load, get assigned. It is now their baby, and they are still scheduled normal hours but on call 24/7. Every police department, seperates the divisions a little differantely. The LVMPD, has a few divisions that some cities dont have. The one I am most used to dealing with are detectives from Tourism Saftey Division.

This topic got dropped pretty quickly. I don't have an answer about how NYPD assigns cases to detectives. But I asked my sister how it works in our county. She said that the detectives don't have partners (we are too small for that), but each detective in each department has and area that he/she covers (hers was Juvenile Sex Crimes in the south part of the county). But depending on the case, detectives from other departments and/or areas will help out. They basically work weekdays, but are assigned to be on call nights and weekends. So she might get called in to help on a burlary over the weekend.
But here is what I thought was interesting. She said that she discovered that she had spent so much time getting inside the heads of "perverts" that she lost the ability to think like an ordinary criminal. She was pretty good at getting confessions from sex offenders, but she couldn't get a confession from a burglar. So she would help with investigation and paperwork, but she wouldn't interview them. As she was telling me that, I thought "Bobby could get a confession from ANYONE"--well, except Nicole Wallace, of course! OK, I'll stop rambling and let this topic die a natural death.