This is the example paragraph I used for my Criminology Unit 3, Ac1.2 section, in which I achieved 98/100 (A*). It perfectly matches the criteria and contains all the details/examples you need.
Ac1.2
One investigative technique used in criminal investigations is surveillance which has the definition of
close watch over someone or something (for example, CCTV). There are 5 main types of surveillance,
one of them being interception of communications: involves reading emails/messages or listening to
phone calls (similar to digital footprint). The second type is intrusive surveillance where filming is
done in private areas. Directed surveillance is also another type however this one includes
monitoring specific people (usually in the public). The last two types are covert surveillance (discrete
operatives like spy cameras) and accessing communication data (getting hold of records like emails,
search history, telephone calls etc.). A positive of surveillance is that recent studies show how crime
decreased by 13% in places with CCTV, showing how it is significantly important when it comes to
decreasing crime. Reinforcing this idea, a further meta-analysis was able to show how drug related
crimes decreased by 20% and vehicle/property thefts dropped by 14%. Surveillance is clearly a
majorly useful when it comes to decreasing all different types of crime, a reason for this may be the
fact it increases the offender's perception of getting caught, this will automatically arouse more
doubt and overthinking to criminals about to commit a crime. Despite all these positives,
surveillance does have a few downsides, for example, police are much more likely to become too
reliant on cameras, especially when it comes to noticing any details about either the victim or
suspect, meaning their vigilance is reduced. This is a huge disadvantage as the lower the guard of the
police officers, the less awareness of crime there is, and more room is available for criminals to
escape. Similarly, the level of natural surveillance is also reduced mainly due to the fact that people
tend to become more avoidant of areas with loads of CCTV (it makes the local area look and feel
unsafe). Surveillance showed much usefulness in the Sabina Nessa case as the hotel CCTV managed
to capture her horrifying murder. Clear evidence was left behind of the murdered striking her
repeatedly over the head, later proceeding to strangle her and remove her clothing in hopes of later
hiding her body. Without the hotels CCTV, the investigation would’ve been much more difficult
involving many different types of tests, specifically as there were no witnesses. Surveillance also
helps out a lot when it comes to street violent crimes: not only it helps with identifying the
assaulted, but also can provide the police with an accurate timeline of events helping speed up and
ease the investigations.
Another type of useful investigative technique in criminal investigations is interviews, especially
eyewitness. These could come in the form of cognitive interviews where the interviewer menstrually
recreates the environmental and personal context of the crime (e.g. asking about general activity or
feelings of that day). Interviewee is typically asked to use all 5 of their senses as this could trigger
any details seeing as the events are recreated more clearly. Standardised police interviews may be
the other type of technique used, this is similar to cognitive interviews where interviewees are asked
specific questions, just that their senses aren’t prioritised. Acquisition, retention, retrieval and
memory retrieval are all vital steps when it comes to carrying out a successful police interview as
they open the opportunities for absorbing of the events, then storing that info in the memory and
later retrieving it once familiar factors have helped recall things. This technique is highly reliable
which makes it useful as juries are often more likely to believe it. This statement could be backed up
by the Devlin Committee (report) 1976 - studies have shown that in 1973, 82% of the conviction rate
on 850 cases involved the suspect being identified in a line up. It is crystal clear that juries have high
trustworthiness when it comes to eyewitness testimonies, despite it only being circumstantial
evidence. A not very good factor about eyewitness testimonies is that memory retrieval can lead to
misleading information especially if the leading questions are guiding the memo to inaccurately
producing many misconceptions. Retention will also face the struggle of recalling inaccurate
information, depending on the time length of the event (the longer it is, the more details are likely to
be missed) and whether the discussion of events were talked about with anyone else (interviewee
may be easily influenced by others sense of story therefore repeat the story of their point of view
instead of their own). Anxiety and stress may also lead the person to doubt or double guess
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