In the New York Police Department:
- Detective First Grade is someone who has proven to be a particularly top-notch detective, and, in consequence, is given lieutenant's pay.
- Detective Second Grade is a journeyman investigator. Experienced and dependable, s/he's been appointed to a grade that gives him/her sergeant's pay.
- Detective Third Grade is either someone who's been a detective a relatively short time, or someone who hasn't really distinguished him/herself, but hasn't disgraced him/herself either, and so has moved neither up, nor back into uniform.
- A "white shield" investigator refers to police officers that will receive their gold detective shields in 18 months.
- Most detectives make only slightly more money than "white shield" uniformed police officers. A detective second grade makes about as much money as a sergeant; a first grade makes about as much as a lieutenant. There are some informal status boosts to making the higher grades, but no real authority.
The person being arraigned before Rebecca at the start of the episode was being charged with predatory sexual assault, it is a charge not see too often and the most severe sex crime a person can be charged with in the state of New York. Predatory sexual assault is charged when a person commits the crime of rape in the first degree, criminal sexual act in the first degree, aggravated sexual abuse in the first degree, or course of sexual conduct against a child in the first degree and causes serious physical injury to the victim or threatens the use of deadly force against the victim. It can also be charged when a person commits one or more of the aforementioned crimes against more than one person or commits one of them after being previously convicted of a felony sex crime. Predatory sexual assault is a class A-II felony and carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in prison and a maximum of 25 years. However this sentence is added on top of the sentence for the predicate felony sex crime, so if someone is convicted of rape in the first degree and sentenced to 12.5 to 20 years for it then their sentence for predatory sexual assault would be added to that, meaning they are now looking at a minimum sentence of 22.5 years.