In the Australian Police, can a Detective be in charge of a police station?

Question

Most police stations have a sergeant, but is it posible that a high-ranking police detective could be in charge of a station of constables, and remain a detective?

Answer 1

Once you have been appointed to the designation of detective (takes 3 - 5 years to do that) it is not  taken from you if you move back into uniform policing.

Detectives per se are not in charge of a station, but they may have been detectives at some time in their career.

Also a Detective can be the officer in charge of criminal investigation branch or child protection and investigation unit, each of which is considered to be a police establishment.

my learned collegue is quite right i negelected to mention that detective is a designation not a rank and is attained through training and service in the investigative field.

Answer 2

This would vary for each police force - there is the Australian Federal Police, but each state has its own police force.

In most states it would be unusual, but it is not impossible, particularly at smaller stations.

You need to remember that "Detective" is not a rank in the police force.

Here in SA for example, you can described as a "Detective Sergeant" which still means that you are a Sergeant of police.

If you were the only Sgt on duty at the time, then you could be in charge of the Station.

Each State would have its own rules about how senior you needed to be to be in charge of the station.

In larger stations, you can have several Sergeants in charge of different areas, so there might be a "Charge Sergeant" and a "Patrol Sergeant" both on duty at the same time and neither one of them might be the station Sergeant at that time.