Out of obscurity: The contemporary private investigator in Australia

Abstract

The business of private investigation has grown significantly in the past two decades. No longer can private investigating be considered an obscure form of private policing. Yet, despite the recent growth of interest in private policing, little research has been conducted on the services provided by private investigators. This article presents the results of an analysis of 33 in-depth interviews with Australian private investigators in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria. The article discusses their contemporary role in the context of providing justice, public policing and future regulatory challenges. The article extends the limited research on the services private investigators provide, including corporate fraud and financial investigations, risk advisory, and cyber and misconduct investigations. It identifies their backgrounds and education, and describes their clients. The study found that, contrary to expectations, to meet these new services, private investigators are now highly qualified academically and professionally. It was found that regulatory gaps have been created in the licensing of contemporary private investigators, and the use of private investigators allows clients to sidestep the justice system.

Profiting from a tainted trade: private investigators’ views on the popular culture glamorisation of their trade

“…The legal definition of a private investigator differs between each Australian state, but all have the common theme of being a person who covertly obtains information about people, investigates a person, conducts surveillance or searches for missing persons (for example, the Security Providers Act 1993 Qld). Their services include corporate, risk advisory, insurance, liability and workplace investigations (King, 2020). Prenzler and King (2002) note that private investigators are available to pursue justice in circumstances in which the state does not provide a service or when a more private service is required.…”

“…They are often the “last port of call” for people who have been subject to injustices for which the police are unable to assist (Prenzler, 2001). However, while they may be the last port of call for some clients, private investigators also provide a service to clients who can afford it and do not wish to report a crime, thus avoiding or selectively engaging with the wider criminal justice system on their own terms (King, 2020; Williams, 2005).…”

Financial fraud investigative interviewing – corporate investigators’ beliefs and practices: a qualitative inquiry

“…More recently, King (2020b) found that private investigators who undertook corporate investigation prized communication skills as the most critical for their work and noted that conducting interviews were a significant component of daily work. While Gottschalk (2017, p. 630) observed that it was possible for private investigators to "jump on the roles of prosecutor and judge when they interview and write about suspects in their reports of investigations".…”

“…A survey by Clements (2020, p. 125), regarding fraud investigators in the United States (US), found that experienced investigators are typically organised, reliable, hardworking, self-directed, punctual, scrupulous, ambitious and persevering. King (2020b) examined Australian investigators and noted that communication was easily considered the most critical attributeit was crucial to have the skill to talk to people about very emotional or confronting issues (e.g. theft of property or workplace harassment claims).…”

“…theft of property or workplace harassment claims). Despite rapport being considered one of the most important aspects of investigative interviewing (Abbe and Brandon, 2014;Walsh and Bull, 2012), it was only considered important by one-third of private investigators (King, 2020b).…”