According to a description of private investigators’ responsibilities and qualifications at the US government website, private investigators will often be required to have a license, and they will often be involved in long, tedious hours of investigation. Such activities may include running after criminals while stalking them or engaging in long hours of stakeouts; following people around and monitoring their activities closely; and gathering evidence after searching through databases and doing a lot of research. Such persons are not always from the military – they can work for law firms after retiring from their jobs in the legal arena; they can be accountants who know the ins and outs of bad auditing; they can be ordinary people.

Nevertheless, mass media can play a great role in propagating the over-glorified image of the over-active PI. The PI goes on car chases, eludes nefarious criminals, and dodges bullets on routine. According to Gary Tinker, however, this is all entertainment. In an article available through, Tinker acknowledges that indeed, PI’s have to work on surveillance videos and do stakeouts, but a lot of what mass media shows is often hype. Tinker goes against the glamour of shows such as CSI, where answers are obtained to difficult questions in about a few hours. It can take several days and months for a resolution, Tinker says.

Tinker was once a military policeman and used to work in military intelligence. He was recently appointed to the state licensing board of Kentucky, and is responsible for accrediting private investigators. In Kentucky, private investigators need to pass a state exam in order to obtain their license. The examination review book is over a hundred and eighty pages and is available online. It contains information on how investigators should act, the laws of the state and the federal government regarding investigation and privacy, and how investigation should be conducted. Once the exam is over and passed, aspiring private investigators should also pass a background check, give the state three copies of their fingerprints, and moreover, pay for insurance covering liability.

The state license for Kentucky has to be renewed once in very two years. Tinker says that he often encounters unlicensed investigators, most of them retired policemen, and who think that their law enforcement work will allow them to go on private investigation romps without the required license. Tinker is on the side of the law, however, and acknowledges that a former career in law enforcement is not an exemption.

The article also tells of more investigators and their experiences.

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