Criminal investigation is a discipline with a long history. As early as the late primitive society, criminal investigation activities have already appeared. The Book of History Yao Dian contains: "The emperor (Shun Di) said,' Hao Tao is Man Zi, the thief is a traitor, and you are a scholar', which is the earliest record of investigation activities in China. Qin Zhen Yin, Song Yi Prison Collection, Ghost Guide to Breaking Prison, Tang Yin Bi Shi and Tang Song Yi Yi Yuan Prison Collection are the main documents of criminal investigation in China, which record the procedures, methods, skills and strategies of criminal investigation and lay a preliminary foundation for the knowledge structure of criminal investigation. 1893, Hans Gross of Austria published the Handbook of Judicial Appraisers (also translated into criminal investigation), which combined criminal countermeasures with forensic medicine, Forensic Toxicology, forensic chemistry, anthropometry, fingerprint identification, handwriting identification and bullet inspection, and established criminal investigation. Subsequently, criminal investigation developed rapidly, various criminal investigation textbooks came out one after another and criminal investigation research institutions were established one after another.

On the basis of absorbing the essence of ancient investigation activities and learning advanced foreign criminal investigation theories, China's criminal investigation has formed an independent knowledge system after more than 50 years of development. Since 1954, criminal investigation in new China has entered the period of the founding of the People's Republic of China. Some political and legal colleges have successively opened the course of "criminal countermeasures" (that is, "criminal investigation" now), translated the speeches and teaching materials of a group of criminal investigation experts in the former Soviet Union, and a complete set of criminal investigation teaching materials have come out one after another; During the ten-year turmoil from 1966 to 1976, criminal investigation research was seriously damaged. Although some colleges and universities set up criminal investigation training courses and courses around 1974, the teaching and research work in this period was basically at a standstill. From September 65438 to September 0979, the Public Security Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security organized and compiled the first textbook, Criminal Investigation, which systematically summarized the experience of criminal investigation since the founding of the People's Republic of China. In the same year, the Ministry of Public Security entrusted the Ministry of Justice to set up a criminal investigation department in Southwest University of Political Science and Law. Its criminal investigation major is the first undergraduate criminal investigation major approved by the Ministry of Education in China. At the beginning of its establishment, criminal investigation courses were set up to systematically introduce criminal investigation knowledge. 198 1 year later, various political, legal, public security and police colleges have successively compiled their own criminal investigation textbooks, and the construction of this course has entered an all-round development stage. At present, more than 100 colleges and universities in China have offered criminal investigation courses.