This document contains AC1.1, which Evaluates the effectiveness of the roles of personnel involved in the criminal investigation, from the Unit 3 section of the WJEC Criminology course. I worked hard on these notes during secondary school, which gave me an A* overall once I finished my course. I've...
Evaluate the effectiveness of the roles of personnel involved in the criminal investigation
Police officers:
Role:
- Police officers are most commonly the first people to arrive at a crime scene
- Their first duty is to ensure the wellbeing of anyone involved, for example by calling
an ambulance or keeping the public away from the scene for their safety
- If the suspect is still present, they should aim to arrest them, if possible
- the police officer’s role is to make sure that the evidence at the scene is conserved
until a SOCO is available to gather it
- ensuring that nobody enters the scene or touches anything that could be classed as
evidence.
- also take witness statements from people who saw the crime take place, and this
needs to be done as soon as possible to avoid issues of witnesses forgetting or being
confused as to what they saw
- maximise the ‘golden hour’ (the hour immediately after the crime is discovered to
preserve the scene, take initial statements from victims and witnesses
Detectives:
- similar role to police
- They have a more managerial role, meaning they oversee what happens at the scene
initially and talk to the officers to gather the information they need to begin their
investigation
Effectiveness:
Availability
- Police officers work on an on-call basis, meaning they are available to attend to
crime scenes 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
- This is vital as it means criminals are more likely to be arrested at the scene which
saves time in trying to identify and locate them later.
- 79% of officers say that they suffer from anxiety and stress or (PTSD), this could
cause a lack of availability as less officers will be working due to taking leave and may
result in newly qualified officers being put on the criminal investigation.
Expertise
- Police officers undergo training to ensure that they are fit to carry out their role and
so they have specialist knowledge to be able to deal with a crime scene.
- Detectives have many years of experience in order to obtain the rank of detective,
and they often work in specialist departments which ensures that they are equipped
to investigate and deal with the crime at hand.
- Police could fail to secure a crime scene, which could possibly result in the
contamination of evidence, and this would severely hinder the case in court.
, AC1.1
Cost
- Both police officers and detectives get paid a yearly salary which incurs costs.
- Starting salary £19,000 for a police officer, £42,000 experienced
- Public spending on police services in the United Kingdom rose to £21.49 billion in
2020/21, the highest amount spent
Other Limitations:
- Certain crimes may not be taken as seriously by the police, or because of personal
biases this can be issues such as homophobia or racism
- Issues such as institutional racism in the police force show incompetence and
discriminatory attitudes among the police. This affects crime scene procedures as
they may make assumptions about the offender or victim which could lead to
evidence being overlooked or the crime not being investigated correctly
Case studies to add:
Stephan Lawrence:
- Racially motivated attack resulting in the death of Lawrence whilst walking home.
- Failed to be recognized as a hate crime due to the institutional bias and racism of the
police service and failures to investigate suspects due to force corruption
Yorkshire Ripper:
- Peter Sutcliffe was found guilty for murdering at least 13 women in the late 1970s
- He was finally arrested in 1981
- He was caught in a car in Melbourne Avenue, an area known for being the Sheffield's
red light district with a prostitute
- wo police officers, Sergeant Bob Ring and Robert Hydes decided to investigate
because the car they were in had false number plates.
- The next day the two police officers returned to the scene of arrest and found a
knife, hammer and rope which had been discarded when Sutcliffe had told them he
was "bursting to pee"
Grinder Killer:
- Stephen port convicted of killing 4 gay men
- It was believed homophobia played a part in the flawed investigation made by the
police
- It was concluded that the police failings “probably” contributed to the deaths of the
last 3 victims
- officers in Barking missed repeated opportunities to catch Port
Amanda Knox:
- Exchange student found dead in her flat in Italy, friend Knox suspected of murder.
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