Process Essay: Set Guidelines For Criminal Investigations

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A criminal investigation is defined as the process of discovering, collecting, preparing, identifying and presenting evidence to determine what happened and who is responsible (Orthmann & Hess, 2013, p. 8).
Set Guidelines on conducting a preliminary investigation for a criminal case
In order for a criminal investigation to be successful, the initial response of an investigator is crucial. Many people believe that criminal cases are won or lost in court; however more cases are lost during the first hour of investigation, than in court (book pg14). The first hour of an investigation is known as the initial response period. Because the initial response is crucial to criminal investigations it is important investigators follow a set of guidelines …show more content…

In order for investigators to conduct an efficient follow-up investigation it is important that the officers conducting the investigation are familiar with all the observations, notes and evidence collected in the preliminary investigation. I believe it is important for the investigator conducting the follow-up investigation to be familiar with the collected evidence because they will need to review the laboratory results of the evidence under examination. In addition, the investigator may want to perform additional searches at the crime scene to see if any evidence was missed. I believe it is important for the investigator to be familiar with notes taken while questioning the witnesses because they will have to run back ground checks on the victims, witnesses, and suspects. It is also essential to study the statements these individuals gave in case they want to conduct additional …show more content…

Police officers will investigate this type of death if there is any suspicion that a criminal offense may be linked to or caused the death (website). If a sudden death has occurred and the deceased’s primary doctor or doctor that had been treating the deceased while in the hospital saw the patient within 14 days before or after their death occurred, they will be able to supply a medical certificate of the cause of death. In this case the deceased’s death would not need to be reported to a