After working in both LE and the private sector I have to disagree with your comments, I think it depends completely on which company you go to
- The kit is way better in the private sector than it ever was with LE, if we need something we purchase it within the hour rather than waiting 6 months for it to go through a business meeting and failing because there is no budget
Depends on what your company is like in the private sector. I have worked for some fairly chaotic ones that used to go near to bankruptcy fairly often and leave staff unable to pay for a pencil sharpener. And of course it depends on what kind of LE unit you work for as they tend to have different funding sources/priorities.
- I get the same pay to go to the private sector for much better/less hours, never expected to work overtime unless I want to. There was ZERO training budget in LE and everything was in-house by someone who just wanted a jolly day away from their desk so didn't care about teaching. In the private sector they have purchased me an Encase passport.
You are lucky - this wasn't my experience at all. Unpaid overtime in the private sector is how some firms seem to stay afloat.
- Every job I have ever done in the private sector has been on behalf of police forces and have been criminal cases so you can have the same satisfaction without the struggles of being in the public sector.
Again you are lucky to not have to do soul-sucking corporate work on behalf of financial vampires and the big law firms and consultancies. Never again. I would also say that the private companies who do outsourced police work will be handed the less interesting cases because their in-house guys get the juicy stuff. So there's the potential to end up endlessly grading IIOC day in, day out, especially for some of the smaller/mid-tier CF firms. I've also witnessed the hire and fire cycle some of these firms go through when they get awarded a big LE contract that goes sour a year or two down the line when the work product they are delivering isn't up to scratch.
Don't get me wrong the public sector is a great start but not every private forensics company is the same. If you do your research and are good enough you will end up working for a company similar to mine if you don't research you will end up in a company as you described.
I'd love to know what company that is. I was never keen on the idea of working for a smallish regional private CF company. I get that some of them have contracts with the police and that you don't have to deal with all the red-tape and politics, but you get plenty of different crap flung your way instead. From what I've seen.
I'd really like to hear from people who have experience in one or both of these areas. I've seen increasing numbers of jobs advertised for working in police forces cyber forensics departments. The pay is often not very competitive which might lead you to believe it is less desirable to work in forensics for the police, but is this necessarily the case?
I appreciate there are key differences in working to obtain evidence in a criminal investigation and the laws and procedures that must be followed, compared with private investigations. But I'm more interested to hear about the environment, skills, caseload management, etc.
I'm sure there are many people on here who are or have worked in both environments so I'd love to hear more.
For example
1 - Is the caseload for each examiner significantly more in the police? Are they less efficient?
2 - Are the police well up to date with the latest technology and methodologies used or are they lagging behind private professionals?
3 - How much and in what circumstances do the police outsource their work to private forensics or do they tend to do their work in house?Although I will be the first to say I'm a beginner with very little experience there are two things I have noticed. One is that the police jobs are often offering low pay with training provided, that tells me that perhaps they are attracting the lower skilled and beginners. The other thing is they seem quite rigid, I typically only see EnCase being used by the police and occasionally perhaps a mobile examination tool like XRY - that suggests that perhaps examination is more of a routine on a conveyor belt with less attention to detail and less flexibility when it comes to new problems (e.g. if a new phone comes in that they don't know how to unlock).
I don't mean this with any disrespect to those who work in police forensics, I understand it can be a great beginning to put on your CV and I accept that the police are very resource limited. I'd just like to hear as much as possible.
I have been a private examiner for 5 years and law enforcement for the last year in the US. So keep in mind that I may not have the same experiences that UK investigators have.
#1 Yes, the caseload is significantly higher, and often more complex. In 5 years in the private sector I handled approximately 200 cases, so about 40 cases a year. This was a pretty good pace for me, and the work often wasn't too complicated. Going to a police setting however was drastically different. In one year I have about 90 cases on my plate. Our backlog for getting information back to the case officer is about 6 months, that's a best case scenario.
#2 In my experience no. Since private companies have a little more leeway when it comes to spending their budget, they are much better able to keep up with the latest trends and updates. In law enforcement, I have to submit a request to get something paid, wait for it to be approved (which can take a few days, weeks or months), and then I finally get the update. Other departments may not have this system, but that's how mine works. The company I used to work for has the latest new gadgets from Encase and AccessData, but my department is abotu a year behind.
#3 It depends. I have only outsourced a handful of times and they were "minor" and relatively time sensitive cases. One was a supposed system breech, one was a cyber harrassment, and violations of government computer policy. The firm I used gave us a discount and got the job done quick with detailed reports, I would definately use them again. However, I still run into the issue of getting approval to hire an outside firm, but that is often easier than getting money for updates (go figure).
Overall, there are pros and cons to each sector. There is more money to be made in the private sector, but it may not be quite your cup of tea. My personal experience is great. I am a sworn officer who can still take regular calls for service, but my main focus is forensics. So depends on what you would rather do.
I am italian. I am a consultant by myself. I work both for private and the italian LE.
In this year I will choose where to focus. Working for italian police is a great experience, unluckly you are not paid a lot. Obviously as consulnta I pay my hardware and software.
My idea was to transfer to London, but reading your notes… I stay here!
I am italian. I am a consultant by myself. I work both for private and the italian LE.
In this year I will choose where to focus. Working for italian police is a great experience, unluckly you are not paid a lot. Obviously as consulnta I pay my hardware and software.
My idea was to transfer to London, but reading your notes… I stay here!
You would probably get more money in London, though of course living costs (rent, etc.) are very high. The experience is valuable, depending on what you wanted to do longer term - all the biggest companies/banks etc are there. That said I would much prefer to be in Italy if I had the choice o
I've always wondered if my experience is similar to others out there. I started as a patrol officer in the southwest US and eventually moved into crime scene as a detective. When the job opened up I was recommended the spot by two sergeants because I was the techy cop; good at math and computers and whatnot.
I work for a medium sized department for a small-ish city (100 officers 50k pop). Prior to me we had no-one working in any type of digital forensics. Officers (and detectives) would resort to taking photographs of text messages or simply ignoring the evidence. I started pushing the brass toward creating some sort of actual procedure and got myself involved in mobile forensics. That's sort of evolved into video and now computer forensics. I'm sort of the one-stop-shop when it comes to digital evidence.
As far as the workload it is rough. I'm about 6-7 months behind. One person doing digital forensics for a whole department this size is rough, especially now the word has gotten around. I'm somehow still expected to do my regular crime scene duties (processing scenes etc), as there is only 4 of us in crime scene. I average around 150-200 cases a year, about 60-80 cases of that is digital stuff.
The pay isn't as good and the equipment is ok. The upside is that they are buying me new hardware/software as the money becomes available. The training is good, I get around 200 ish hours in advanced training and they help pay college courses.
I guess the biggest takeaway is that my "department" wouldn't even exist if I had not created it. It does feel good to say that I've made a significant difference in how cases are investigated (with the regards of digital evidence at least)