The Anatomy of a Criminal Investigation
Despite the considerable attention devoted to the study of policing, criminologists tend to ignore one of its most important functions. Criminal investigations involve approximately 16% of law enforcement personnel, and play a major role in the public’s image of the police through their successes or failures. This scholarly lacuna is even more surprising given the gateway position held by detectives and police investigators. Unless a crime is solved and an individual arrested, the entire remainder of the criminal justice system – prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges, juries, probation, jails, prisons, parole, rehabilitation – fails to come into play. What research that has explored this function has been primarily interested in organizational and technical aspects of detective work. Here, I take a different approach by exploring the anatomy of a criminal investigation – the underlying structure of what is required, what is done, how it fails, and how it can be improved. Specific areas of interest include the functional phases of an investigation, the definition and nature of evidence, and the systemic structure of criminal investigative failures. The Gail Miller-David Milgaard murder investigation is used as a case study.