Young Writers Society

Okay, so, for starters: slightly alternate universe (just to avoid disrupting today's time stream) with technology and social development around the mid-1980's level (I'm still toying around with the year), metropolitan Minnesota, USA.

How would a detective function within a police station in that time period? How would a large-scale case be handled? Especially one that's heavily covered in the local news?

I'm planning on doing a tonne of my own research, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask, if any of you have a clue how to answer me.

I have no idea >.< But I would probably start by watching some 80's detective tv shows and movies. It won't be entirely historically accurate, but it will give you an idea about what happens.

Also, you could check out reports or documentaries about major crime cases and find out how they were conducted.

Don't forget that the state of media back then was hugely different to how it is now. Check out the 80's culture to see if people would have actually paid attention to the news, or if there were any other incidents that might have overridden the importance of a local case.

Ah, Ten mentioned media. That is something I'm actually well versed in.

In the 80s, the only way to get information was the newspaper, radio, and evening news. Whatever the journalists wanted you to see, you got. There was no such thing as a citizen journalist. And the media did control a lot. Every major event, they'd spin the story in a very exact way to either cause panic or prevent it.

In a similar vein, cops control how much the media knows and sees— mostly in an attempt to cough up witnesses and weed out false ones, or trip up the real perp. This isn't necessarily for any panic purposes, but more to make sure they aren't making life harder for themselves.

However, if a case hits a certain degree of notoriety, then large scale organizations can start to pick it up (how many times do you hear about a crime on your local news, compared to the national news?). This puts a huge amount of pressure on the detectives in question, because despite all attempts to control the details of the case, the sheer numbers/body count will get people panicking (let's be honest, it's usually violent cases that hit the national scale. Or really big frauds).

Individual detectives tend to live and breathe their cases until either every lead is exhausted, or they've caught somebody. Whether or not that person is right is up for debate.

Also consider 1980s technology. DNA testing was coming into light for the useful tool it was. Before that, and even today, when DNA testing doesn't work out, investigators can use serological tests, blood typing, and other tools to identify links between individuals and crime scenes.

Communication. The first US mobile phone service launched in 1983, so if we are looking at late 80s for your story, it's possible your detective has a cellphone. That being said, mobile phones back then sucked. They took a long time to charge, and the charge didn't last long. Also, network coverage was limited because most people were still on land lines.

Police in the 80s operated off of radios in their cars. Cellphones were probably limited to personal use, like by plain clothes like detectives. Common officers probably didn't bother with them. they were more likely to have car phones.

As Rosey said, most information was tightly controlled by the police. You should look into press releases for high-profile crimes in the 1980s. Read detective fiction from that time period to get an idea for how officers operated. True crime is also a great genre to glean inspiration from.