Police Identification and Records Officers

Moderate Risk
Low High

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Occupation snapshot

What does this snowflake show?
The Snowflake is a visual summary of the five badges: Automation Risk (calculated), Risk (polled), Growth, Wages and Volume. It gives you an instant snapshot of an occupations profile. The colour of the Snowflake relates to its size. The better the occupation scores in relation to others, the larger and greener the Snowflake becomes.
JOB SCORE
4.9/10
What's this?
Job Score (higher is better):

We rate jobs using four factors. These are:

- Chance of being automated
- Job growth
- Wages
- Volume of available positions

These are some key things to think about when job hunting.

Risk & user votes

Calculated automation risk

41% (Moderate Risk)

Moderate Risk (41-60%): This occupation may be meaningfully affected by automation. Some parts of the role may be suitable for AI, software, or robotics, while others still rely on human skill, judgement, trust, or real-world context. People in this range may benefit from building skills that complement automation and reduce replacement risk.

More information on what this score is, and how it is calculated is available here.

Human strengths important in this job

These are human abilities and work contexts that are important in this occupation. They may help explain why parts of the role are harder to replace end-to-end, but they are not the only inputs into the automation score.

Decision-making and problem solving

Very important
Why this matters
Analyze information, weigh tradeoffs, and choose the best solution—especially when situations are ambiguous, high-stakes, or have real-world consequences.
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Assisting and caring for others

Quite important
Why this matters
Provide hands-on help, emotional support, or personal care to people—work that depends on empathy, trust, and responding to individual needs in the moment.
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Thinking creatively

Quite important
Why this matters
Coming up with original ideas and designs—creating new concepts, products, systems, or artistic work. This kind of open-ended invention and taste-based judgment is harder to automate end-to-end than routine, rule-based tasks.
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Social perceptiveness

Quite important
Why this matters
Noticing others’ emotions and reactions in the moment and adjusting what you say or do based on why they’re responding that way.
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Coaching and developing others

Quite important
Why this matters
Helps people learn and improve through coaching, mentoring, and feedback. This relies on trust, motivation, and adapting guidance to each person—work that’s hard to replace end-to-end with automation.
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Show 3 more strengths

Communicating with people outside the organization

Quite important
Why this matters
Represents the organization to customers, the public, or government—handling questions, concerns, and relationship-building through conversations, writing, calls, or email.
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Developing objectives and strategies

Quite important
Why this matters
Sets long-term goals and chooses strategies and actions to reach them, weighing tradeoffs and adapting plans as conditions change.
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Active learning

Quite important
Why this matters
Keeps learning from new information and applying it to make better decisions now and in the future, especially when situations change.
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What users think

Based on 15 votes

What do you think the risk of automation is?

What is the likelihood that Police Identification and Records Officers will be replaced by robots or artificial intelligence within the next 20 years?

Pay & outlook

Wages

High paid relative to other professions

In 2024, the median annual wage for Detectives and Criminal Investigators was $93,580 ($45 per hour).

The median annual wage for Detectives and Criminal Investigators was 89.1% higher than the national median annual wage, which stood at $49,500.

* Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics

Growth

Slow growth relative to other professions.

The number of 'Detectives and Criminal Investigators' job openings is expected to decline 0.7% by 2034

* Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the period between 2023 and 2033
Updated projections are due 09-2025.

Volume

Greater range of job opportunities compared to other professions

As of 2024 there were 110,790 people employed as 'Detectives and Criminal Investigators' within the United States.

This represents around 0.07% of the employed workforce across the country

Put another way, around 1 in 1 thousand people are employed as 'Detectives and Criminal Investigators'.

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Job description

Collect evidence at crime scene, classify and identify fingerprints, and photograph evidence for use in criminal and civil cases.

O*NET-SOC code: 33-3021.02