Having ‘a nose for it’: How Investigators Investigate

Abstract

There are comparatively few studies that have involved interviewing detectives specifically about their involvement in sexual assault investigations. Those studies have yielded interesting results, although have typically involved small sample sizes (e.g., Gregory and Lees, 1999; Temkin, 1997, 1999).

I prefer five clean murders to one rape case. The more you investigate and get into it, the stickier it gets. … Murder I can understand, but I can’t really understand rape.

(Detective, quoted in Burgess, 1999, p. 3)