Evolution of the Criminal Investigation Department
| Author | Mitchel Roth |
| Pages | 26-29 |
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Most scholars suggest that the first criminal investigation division was established in France. The development of the Sûreté can be traced to the innovations of François Eugène Vidocq (1775–1857) in the early nineteenth century. Vidocq left home for a life of adventure at an early age. However, his perambulations would bring him into the orbit of an unsavory milieu and earn him several stints in prison. An escape artist, Vidocq came to prominence after breaking out of prison three times. While incarcerated in 1809 he offered to work for the police as a spy and informant, a dangerous proposition. Vidocq was released shortly after and placed in command of a group of ex-convicts which became the nucleus of the Sûreté, known today as the Police Judicaire. His thief-catching force soon expanded from four to twenty-four as Paris witnessed a concomitant drop in property crime.
Considered the world's first private detective, Vidocq employed numerous police detection techniques—considered standard procedures today—including disguises, decoys, informants, autopsies, blood tests, ballistics, criminal files, and handwriting analysis. He directed the Sûreté from 1811 until he resigned in 1827. Except for a brief return to the bureau in 1832, Vidocq worked as a private detective the remainder of his career. A friend of both the celebrated and the damned, he returned to sleuthing as a counterespionage agent for Louis-Napoléon. Vidocq's exploits have reportedly provided the inspiration for several fictional sleuths, including Edgar Allan Poe's Auguste C. Dupin, Émile Gaboriau's Monsieur Lecoq, and Honoré de Balzac's Jacques Collin.
The late nineteenth century witnessed the transformation of the Sûreté into a highly professional detective police force as it was institutionalized into a separate unit. It won international renown for its meticulous information gathering and is generally considered the inspiration for the International Criminal Police Organization, better known as Interpol, and the Scotland Yard Criminal Investigation Department, or CID. In 1966 the Sûreté was merged with the police of Paris to form the National Police.
The incorporation of a plainclothes branch in England faced its first setback when the overzealous spying of a plainclothes policeman at a Chartist meeting led to charges of spying by the London public, a serious breach of trust. Although it became a fairly common practice to borrow uniformed officers for detective work, it was not until 1842 that a formal investigative branch was created. The foundations for the British CID were put in place in 1842, when the Detective Branch, or "the Detective," was formed. This branch was considered the progenitor of what became CID four decades later. Initially, the branch included two inspectors and six sergeants from the London Metropolitan Police.
The largest and best-known branch of Scotland Yard, the CID was established in 1878 as a special branch that would lead the police force in its transition into a new era of scientific crime fighting. This unit developed extensive criminal files, a forensic laboratory, and a fraud squad, and used fingerprinting and photography. Later it introduced a detective school. London's CID grew out of one of Scotland Yard's most embarrassing moments. The
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precursor to the CID was called the Detective Branch, and in 1877 three out of its four inspectors were convicted of corruption in a trial held at the Old Bailey criminal court. As the government department responsible for internal affairs in England and Wales, the Home Office directed an investigation that resulted in the groundwork for a new detective branch called the Criminal Investigation Department.
Sir Howard Vincent (1849–1908) initially directed the new department and in 1884 established the Special Irish Branch of the CID to combat Irish terrorists, the world's first antiterrorist squad. The creation of the Special Branch, the first specialist section of the CID, was precipitated by the bombing campaign launched by the American-based Fijian movement. Beginning in the late 1860s Fijians inaugurated a bombing campaign in England in order to win home rule for Ireland. In 1883 Fijians bombed several public buildings, resulting in the creation of the Special Irish Branch, later changed to Special Branch. The first members of this unit were primarily of Irish descent. Within two years the Fijians were suppressed. Today, the Special Branch remains a...
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