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Private investigators, in their modern form, have been around since 1833. In France, Eugene Francois Vidocq started the first private detective agency. He developed many of the methods for investigation that are used today, including keeping records and reading ballistics. When people saw how successful he could be in the trade, private investigator agencies popped up all over the world. In the US, Allan Pinkerton started the Pinkerton National Detective Agency in 1850. The “Pinkertons” did both security and private investigation, mixing the two to create proactive security. In time, the field of private investigation became very popular, leading to such great fictional private detectives as Sherlock Holmes, Sam Spade, and Hercule Poirot, and to contemporary characters like Charlie’s Angels and Magnum P.I.

Private investigation has evolved over the years, but it has not strayed from its roots. Private investigators are hired by civilians to find answers to questions. They may have to find a missing person, they may have to catch a cheating spouse, or they may have to solve a murder that the police have no leads for. With the explosion in insurance fraud cases in the past few decades, private investigators are often hired by insurance companies to find evidence of fraud. People regularly hire detectives to track down a person that cannot be easily found, or that they have lost contact with. Private investigators are experts at finding evidence of all sorts of wrongdoing. They can be hired by individuals or corporations and in rare cases by law enforcement agencies to perform work that the police do not have time to do.

Private investigators have an arsenal of tools available to them. For surveillance work, long range listening devices, telephoto lenses, and passive audio and video recording devices allow them to see and hear what is going on in an area of their choosing. Databases and professional contacts allow them to track down missing people that the average civilian could never find. The one tool that private investigators have used since the beginning of the trade is the human mind. Most of what private investigators do involves solving problems by finding information. Private investigators must be trained to think like a detective in order to be good at the job. Many come from police departments or federal law enforcement agencies where they are trained extensively. Others go through civilian training courses and learn the job by doing it.

Private investigators provide society with a valuable service. The police are only available to respond to broken laws. Detectives are there to handle the cases that the police are not chartered to take, or those that the police are not making any headway on. Many detectives come from the law enforcement community and keep contacts within the community. They can get inside assistance from police departments to find information that the average person is not privy to. For a price, a private investigator will solve your problem, find someone, or discover the information that you are looking for.