A.C.1.1 - Evaluate the effectiveness of the roles of personnel involved in
criminal investigations
Police
The first personnel involved in criminal investigations to arrive at the scene is usually the police,
whose main job is to secure the area to preserve evidence, as well as protecting the public. They
must take witness accounts within a short time period after the crime to get the most accurate account
possible, referred to as the “golden hour” to avoid any change in the testimony due to external factors.
The police have been criticised for failures to secure a crime scene adequately and preserve evidence
for the investigation to go further. This is due to the general incompetence of handling evidence,
relating to a lack of epertise and wasted cost on officers who do not do their job properly, and
discrimnatory attitudes of individual officers who abuse their power and act without any
consequences. This includes the case of Stephen Lawrence, who suffered a racial killing by a group
of white men. Police were criticised for their failure following correct crime procedures and not giving
aid to Stephen Lawrence. Due to the lack of justice in the case in 1993, the police were deemed
institutionally racist and had to take onboard recommendations to improve their service. These
prejudiced attitudes show unfair policing, targeting groups of ethnic minoritites.A case study to shoe
the ineefectiveness of police is Sarah Everard, who was raped and murdered by a police officer,
Wayne Couzens who was caught and quickly arrested after the crime was committed. While the
police did arrest the correct perpetrator, the initial crime was committed by a police officer, who did not
fulfil his duty of protecting the public as well as abusing his power as a police officer into tricking
Sarah into believing she was safe with an officer of the law, clearing demonstrating an abuse of
power. The average starting salary for a police officer in Northern Island, England and Wales ranges
from £21,402 - £41,130, while in Scotland it begins at £26,737 - £41,578. It can take up to 18-22
weeks training in a classroom-setting to understand and perform certain skills such as safety, public
order and others. However, it can take up to 7 years to become an official police officer. Budget cuts in
the force have led to a decrease in the number of police officers. There were 160,000 police officers
after the budget was cut. Overall, the police are effective if they are able to contain the crime scene
and stop contamination for proper analysis to happen after.
Crime Scene Investigators (CSI)
CSI are civilians who are employed by the police who provide a 24/7 on-call service and their role is to
collect and identify, retrieve and preserve evidence immediately without contaminating the scene.
They mainly photograph the scene of the crime, recover the bodies for more thorough examination
and can act as expert witnesses in court. CSIs are able to gather information and evidence that can
conclusively lead to a suspects, using their expertise to infer from the observations they made at the
scene. On the other hand, the CSI is in every police force but it is very expensive due to the 24/7
availability, as well as the costs of tests limit the investigations budget. The time taken for their
expertise, including a science degree and training to an international standard, the right procedure
must also be extensively followed in every case to prevent contamination, for example, protective
clothing such as gloves and masks. A case stufy to prove the ineffectiveness of CSI is the cases of
Amanda Knox, who was wrongfully convicted of the murder of Meredith Kercher in 2007, and spent 4
yaers in an Italian prison. The investigation was faulted due to the CSI not wearing protective gear
inside the house of the crime scene as well as wearing the shoe coverings outside, transferring the
surroundings from the outside to the crime scene. The starting salary for a CSI is £22,000 but different
cost implications from testing and being on availability 24/7 raise this salary more. Overall, despite
their limitations, Crime Scene Investigators are very effective because without the CSI, cases wouldn’t
have any evidence start the investigation.
