The Process of Investigation

Concepts and Strategies for Investigators in the Private Sector

Charles A. Sennewald, John Tsukayama

• Publisher: Butterworth-Heinemann
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780128001660
• eBook ISBN: 9780128006436
• Edition: 4
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Cyber Security
• Index: Computer Science

The Process of Investigation, Fourth Edition addresses the needs of today's private sector investigative professional by providing a full-spectrum treatment of the investigative process, from case inception and investigative strategy selection to executing complex investigative techniques, to creating reports useful for corporate, legal, and prosecutorial purposes.Continuing in the tradition of its previous editions, The Process of Investigation, Fourth Edition covers essential topics overlooked in books on the public aspects of investigation. Investigative skills such as surveillance techniques, interviewing and interrogation, collecting and documenting evidence, and taking confessions and written statements are all discussed, and supplemented with updated case studies and examples from the authors' own professional experiences.- Teaches the fundamentals of the investigative process and serves as a valuable reference tool for both the student and the professional- Experienced professionals can brush up on seldom-used specialty skills, and reconsider existing methods and approaches- Includes a new chapter on discrimination investigations

Part I

Fundamentals of Security Investigation

Outline

Chapter 1. The Investigative Process

Chapter 2. A Comparison of Public and Private Sectors

Chapter 3. Qualities of the Investigator

Chapter 4. Managing the Investigative Function

Chapter 1

The Investigative Process

Abstract

This chapter includes information on the division of the investigative process into two categories: constructive and reconstructive, as well as how the investigative process applies to the security industry, and what the basic questions are to be answered regarding an incident or action. The chapter also explains the importance of information collection through communication from informants and interviews, as well as the importance of one’s own powers of observation, using detailed examples drawn from created scenarios as well as historical accounts of early investigative processes. Finally, the chapter compares modern investigative techniques to historical ones and highlights the creative and imaginative nature of investigations.

Keywords

Investigative process; constructive; reconstructive; information collection; communication; observation

An investigation is the examination, study, searching, tracking, and gathering of factual information that answers questions or solves problems. It is more of an art than a science. Although the person engaged in investigation is a gatherer of facts, he or she must develop hypotheses and draw conclusions based on available information. The investigative process, that is to say, is a comprehensive activity involving the collection of information, the application of logic, and the exercise of sound reasoning.

The end result of an investigation is the factual explanation of what transpired, if the incident or issue is history, or what is occurring, if the issue is of the present.

The investigative process is not limited to the criminal justice and security fields. It is an activity found, to one extent or another, in virtually all areas of human endeavor. Academicians are investigators, supervisors faced with disciplinary problems are investigators, antique appraisers are investigators, medical doctors are investigators—just to name a few. Sherlock Holmes, with his deerstalker hat and magnifying glass, may be the art’s most familiar image, but investigation does not belong exclusively to the arena of crime or the realm of cops and robbers.

Just as the art of investigation belongs to no one province, so no one has all the answers as to precisely how any investigation can lead to the desired solution. Too many facets are involved in the process of collection of information, application of logic, and the use of sound reasoning. Some such facets include intuition, luck, mistakes, and the often touted “gut feeling.” No single textbook of formulas is possible; no one book (or author) can stand alone as the ultimate authority. Our purpose, then, is to provide an overview of investigative concepts, strategies, suggestions, guidelines, hints, and examples that can be useful to any investigator.

Two Categories of Investigation

There are two categories of investigation: constructive and reconstructive. Constructive investigations are covert in nature, performed in secrecy. This type of inquiry occurs while the suspected activity is taking place or anticipated. An example might be an investigation into a complaint that a member of middle management solicits sexual favors from female subordinates and reaps favors accordingly. The purpose of the constructive investigation is to determine if objectionable activity is taking place.

Reconstructive investigations are necessary when an event has taken place and the investigator must recreate what happened after the fact. This type of investigation is usually overt in nature, carried out in the open.

The Investigative Process

As it pertains to the security industry, the investigative process is organizationally oriented as opposed to being community oriented. Its objective in this setting is to seek answers to the basic questions—the what, who, where, when, how, and why—regarding a condition, incident, or action deemed organizationally unacceptable, or to meet organizational objectives. Internal dishonesty, for example, is an organizationally unacceptable activity. The background investigation of a prospective new employee would meet one organizational objective.

Most of the investigative process takes place in the collection of information. This gathering or collection is based on communication and observation. The answers to the six basic investigative questions are developed through communication—that is, the written or spoken word; or observation—that is, physical evidence that can be observed (whether by human eye or microscope), touched, or in any way quantitatively measured.

Communication

Communication includes information received from informants, information developed through the interview process, and information obtained in interrogations.

Consider a simple example. A homeowner, hearing the glass of his front window break, runs to the room and commences an immediate inspection to determine the cause. He observes a baseball lying among the pieces of broken glass. Sticking his head out of the broken window, ball in hand, he shouts to a silent group of youngsters in the street. “Okay, you guys, which one of you did it?” As he asks the question, simultaneously he observes that a boy named Harry is holding a baseball bat. Based on the facts thus far gathered, he forms a hypothesis that Harry struck the ball with the bat, causing the ball to enter the homeowner’s living room through the window.

Up to this point, the homeowner, in a natural investigative role as a victim, has had only the benefit of his own powers of observation in forming his hypothesis. But now a couple of the boys in unison say, “Harry did it.” The investigative process has advanced through communication from informants. “Did you do it, Harry?” asks the homeowner. “Yes, sir,” answers Harry, dropping his head. The question and its answer are two other basic elements of communication—interrogation and admission.

Ideally, as in this example, the investigator’s work is simplified if given some direction by an informant, if witnesses are available and willing to cooperate, or if a suspect is known and can be interrogated. Such simplification is not to suggest that all is easy in the communications aspects of investigation. Quite the contrary! Developing informants, or developing a climate in which employees or nonemployees voluntarily will confide in you is not easy. It takes talent. The ability to extract painlessly all the information a witness may have requires training and experience. Only a skillful interviewer can get the specialist to explain the workflow of the finance unit so it is comprehensible and understandable.

Finally, the ability to interrogate, and in that interrogation to obtain voluntary admissions and confessions, requires a high level of skill. The point to be drawn is that communication, although not necessarily easy to manage well, is often extremely helpful to the investigative process. Unfortunately, it is not always available. In such circumstances, investigators must rely totally on observation, at least during the initial phases of the inquiry, as they seek to know the what, who, where, when, how, and why of a situation.

Observation

Scientific technology, in such areas as DNA analysis, forensic computer data examination, fingerprinting, high-speed and low-light videography, and document analysis, to name a few, plays a vital role in the observatory aspects of modern investigation. In our judgment, perhaps too much emphasis has been placed on technology and too little on human powers of observation. (Note: For an exercise in the human powers of observation, see Figure 1.1.)

This is not to suggest that, because computers and cloud-based storage are so sophisticated, we should return to only paper files and printed books. It is to emphasize that the common denominator of information technology and paper records is the aggregation and recall of useful information. Total reliance on computers leaves us vulnerable to prolonged power outages, a critical hard-drive crash, and total information loss should a computer virus attack. In an investigation, we want to gather, organize, analyze, and present factual information, and we should be able to conduct online research, dig through mountains of paper, hold video conferences, prepare multimedia presentations, or use any other means available to us.

Figure 1.1 What is wrong here? This cartoon can be used in investigator training classes by dividing the class into small groups and challenging each group to identify as many errors as they can find. At the conclusion of the timed period, each group shares its findings with the entire class—with widely varying and instructive results. Source: This work originally appeared in the Protection of Assets Manuals published by the Merritt Company and Tim Walsh in 1980 and 1981.

A remarkably wider range of important information is available to us through our own powers of observation than through the use of a laboratory. To see, touch, smell, and hear are all forms of observation. Did you ever touch the hood of an automobile to determine if it had been driven recently as evidenced by its warmth? Did you ever mark the label on a bottle of liquor to determine later if someone was taking unauthorized sips? Such uses of the power of observation are as natural and commonplace as eating and breathing. Consider the example of a shopper who returns to a new car, parked in the shopping mall’s lot, only to find a scratch, dent, or ding in the car door. It is predictable (natural and commonplace) that this unskilled observer will promptly inspect the adjacent automobile to determine if any part of that car reveals, at a height corresponding to the damage to the new car, any evidence of paint fragments that would prove culpability—coloration of victimized vehicle on suspect vehicle, or vice versa.

If, in fact, the power of observation is natural and commonplace in seeking investigative answers and solving problems, why is it that those who are professionally charged with conducting investigations fail to understand, fully appreciate, and maximize such powers? The answer, perhaps, can be found in modern technology, which mitigates against our need to fine-tune our own faculties. Just a few decades ago people had to rely on their own resources. We do not. We hardly tap our capabilities because we do not have to. In our advanced and sophisticated society, there is relatively little need to be observant. Take the weather as an example. Today we have twenty-four-hour access to specialized cable stations that broadcast televised reports on tomorrow’s weather based on the use of real-time satellite imagery. Through the Internet we can view the weather prediction for ourselves from government satellite pictures that are literally “up to the minute.” Meteorologists predict; we accept. Yet, even now, there are men and women who can predict the weather with remarkable accuracy by observing nature in the raw—by observing cloud formation, density, coloration, direction, temperature fluctuation, and so on. Divers and fishermen will tell you that on a calm day, when all the seagulls sit in the water, bad weather is coming fast—and their predictions are at least as accurate as official forecasts.

In terms of observatory skills, people are only as resourceful as their needs. Consider life and death. “Natural” births are currently the norm. To observe, if not assist, in delivery is quite a revelation to most people today. In the not too distant past, most births were “natural.” As for death, what can the urban man or woman know of the natural phenomenon when we live in a societ...

Table of contents

• Cover image
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• About the Authors
• Part I. Fundamentals of Security Investigation
• Part II. Methods of Security Investigation
• Part III. Building a Case
• Part IV. Applying Investigative Strategies
• Part V. Technological and Specialized Investigative Techniques
• Index