NCJ Number
120709
Journal
Law and Order Volume: 37 Issue: 10 Dated: (October 1989) Pages: 89-93
Date Published
1989
Length
5 pages
Annotation
Effective case management of a police department's burglary unit, including assignment and information control, would prioritize its investigations, beginning with the serial criminal.
Abstract
Manhours and resources would be spent on cases with the best chance of successful prosecution and committal of offenders to the criminal justice system. A sample priority system would include cases involving in-custody suspects, cases in which the elements of the crime are established and a suspect identified, cases in which the elements are established and there are leads to a suspect, cases in which the elements are incomplete but a suspect identified or the reverse, and cases in which there is no suspect information. Assignments should be made on the basis of motive, not geography. A computer-controlled data base, possibly run on an IBM XT compatible computer using a dBase program, is essential to information control. It should contain case information, suspect information, and property records; fields useful for tracking crime trends can also be added. A sample data base demonstrates the utility of this approach.