NCJ Number
164932
Date Published
1997
Length
872 pages
Annotation
This text details the basic principles and components of criminal investigation and their application to some of the more important felonies.
Abstract
The text is intended for use in a semester or quarter course. Individual chapters explain the responsibilities and attributes of the investigator; the development, interpretation, and investigative value of physical evidence; the discovery, preservation, collection, and transmission of physical evidence; the roles of criminals, victims, witnesses, and informants as sources of information; and the use of public and private records and files in investigations. Additional chapters explain how to interview witnesses, the examination of specific types of records and files, the cultivation and motivation of informants, the use of surveillance, guidelines and procedures for eyewitness identification, and the principles of interrogation. Further chapters explain the applications of the principles to reconstruct the past in cases of homicide, robbery, rape and other sex offenses, burglary, arson, terrorism, computer crimes, white-collar crime, organized crime, and cults and ritual crime. Further chapters give background information on the nature of crime and criminal law, the management of criminal investigations, the role of constitutional law, rules of evidence, effective testimony, the investigations of prominent cases of the past, and the use of raids. Photographs; figures; chapter notes and reference lists; index; and appended guidelines, forms, and glossary