I’m watching Endeavor (Inspector Morse) and he frequently gets critiques as a good detective but bad policeman.

What does that mean? What are they telling him?

Brains over tactics?

I’ve known some really shitty cops that made great detectives. And great cops that despised detective work. They really are two different jobs, in a lot of cases.

I’m not familiar with the show, but has there ever been a teevee or movie detective since Joe Friday who followed the law and department policies and procedures? If not, that would make them bad policemen. But they always catch the bad guys that no one else can by following the rules, so that makes them good detectives.

I guess.

I've never watched Inspector Morse, but could it be that's he's good at solving crimes, but he does it in really unorthodox ways?

That is, is he bad at following policies and procedures, doing the right paperwork, ensuring things are done legally, and the like?

lots of times, detectives work the edges of the law to get and keep CI's. They make a lot of "I won't arrest you for--- if you tell me who--- deals. And they can be pretty vague about accounting for their time. I have known more than one night shift on-call detective who sat home with the radio on, and he'd respond if something happened.

It's a British show depicting the detective and cases in the late '50s I believe in the Oxford area. Morse read the Greats (at Oxford?). He's intelligent and pretty by the book.

So, it's not like he's doing anything underhanded. It seems like the comment is made to suggest that there are skills of a policeman that he could learn (sounds like he entered directly into a detective role rather than going coming up as a constable).

I don't know. It's just a weird comment that I'm not getting. He's doing his job well. Just not sure what they are trying to point out.

Detecting and policing are two different animals...

Most of the detectives I knew were really bad at policing...

They spent too much time trying to solve each and every call we (patrol) were dispatched to...like having a conversation with Pooky & Ray-Ray's mom about their stealing...taking two hours to never actually solve anything, and causing the other guys on the shift having to handle his calls while he's out saving the world.

I don't know about Insp. Morse, but we have/had a detective who fits the "great detective but lousy cop" bill.



He didn't carry a gun and couldn't even qualify with one; IIRC he got other people to shoot for him and claimed their scores. In a real police department he would never have gotten past his probationary period, let alone achieved the rank of lieutenant.

Detectives- armed steno clerks.