Profiling police investigative thinking: A study of police officers in Norway

This knowledge management study is concerned with how police detectives experience, understand, and think about the process of doing serious and complex criminal investigations. Detectives apply several investigative thinking styles, which are labeled method style, challenge style, skill style, and risk style, respectively. These four thinking styles are modeled in terms of maturity. Over time, it is assumed that detectives will apply higher-level styles such as skill style and risk style. This hypothesis was tested empirically in a survey of police officers in Norway. Support was found for the hypothesis. For example, more years as a detective is positively correlated with both the skill style and the risk style.