Criminal Investigation

Melinda Walker

CJ210: Criminal Investigation

Unit 5: Midterm Essay Exam

08/09/2011

1. What are the methods of inquiry and how are they used in criminal investigation?

The methods of inquiry, at the basic level, include interviews and interrogations, and on a crime-scene specific level also include canvassing, which involves going through the neighborhood, most often door to door to find witnesses who will hopefully give the investigators information on what they saw transpire at the scene of the crime. Interviews are non-custodial, and are the common way to gather information from crime victims and witnesses, or even from informants who might possess further information to help shed light on the facts of the case. Interrogations, on the other hand, are custodial, meaning they are conducted on people who have been arrested as suspects who may have perpetrated a crime, when an investigator is seeking a testimony, if not an admission of guilt or a statement of innocence. While interviews and Interrogations are two different methods of information gathering, each with its own purpose, they can easily shift from one to the other. For instance, if an interviewee gives information that would lead the investigator to believe that the interviewee may be a suspect of the crime, the investigator can arrest them, converting to interview with an interrogation. When this happens, it would be a good idea to read the suspect their Miranda Warnings, so that the testimony that ensues would be admissible as evidence n a court of law, and would not violate the terms of the Miranda Decision (Miranda v. Arizona). Conversely, if during an interrogation, the investigator finds reason to believe the suspect is being detained in error, the investigator can at their discretion consider reversing the interrogation to an interview.

2....