Animation Source Forums

Admittedly I'm not an expert on how things work in real police departments, but I've seen at least one response to Zootopia that brought up an interesting question: why does the ZPD have officers doing detective work?

I have one theory about this, which anyone can chime in on: I suspect that since they have a much wider range of species in the ZPD, with much more varied strengths, weaknesses, and needs, there's a much greater need for cross-training of individual cops. For example, if they need a fast detective but all their faster animals are rank-and-file cops, it would pay for those cops to know at least a little of the detectives' job skills.

That being the case, the line between "officer" and "detective" in the ZPD would probably not sit quite where it does in most real police departments, and might well be blurrier. Part of the reason I bring this up is that if, in a sequel or fan fiction, interactions between cops of different ranks and so on came into play, that would be one interesting factor to see playing out.

Any thoughts?