Scenario: Investigative Plan
You are hired as a consultant in City X and are charged with the responsibility of creating a plan to deal with the multiple daytime robbery attacks in your area. Police officers have been able to obtain limited information for each robbery. Your first order of business is to create a draft of a strategic operational/investigative plan to address the crimes. Your plan should be between 5 page (excluding title and reference pages.)
Please address the following questions in detail. Be creative and utilize any, and all, investigative actions/resources that you can think of. Remember, you are to assemble a plan to address the crimes and ultimately catch the individuals responsible.
Create and describe a list of 10 investigative steps you would take to address this situation.
What technological Helpance would be needed to conduct this operation?
What measures would you take to analyze the pattern of robbery activity?
How would you go about synthesizing the data and coming to a conclusion based on the data?
What types of investigative units would you use to Help in the operation to catch the perpetrators?
What supplies/equipment would you purchase to enable the investigation and operation to be conducted? Given the fact that the money allocated for the investigation is low, what steps would you take to procure more funds?
Investigative Plan
As a consultant, there are various ways that City X can redeem itself from the multiple daytime robberies. One of the most important things to consider involve coming up with a strategy for handling the issue. This would include mapping out the investigative plan to ensure that all police units are at par with the turn of events. Sometimes, law enforcement fails since the measures in place are not competent enough to catch the perpetrator. All that some police department need are steps that help them streamline the way they handle robberies. In this technological era, there are several Helpive technologies that help police departments save time since data helps in narrowing down the suspects. However, it is always essential that investigators rely more on thinking rather than machines to do the work for them. Through the following investigative actions and resources, City X can minimize the number of robbery attacks taking place.
Ten investigative steps to address this situation.
Ten key investigative steps could help with the investigation of a robbery. First, it’s always important to check whether there was an alarm system for the home, bank, or area that was robbed. Second, the police should check whether there are any surveillance devices around the affected location. Third, the police response procedure should be taken into consideration to determine whether they entered directly or had to wait for hostage release. Fourth, any interviewed witnesses contribute to knowledge of the crime scene. The fifth step should include analyzing the elements of the crime. The sixth step could involve the robber’s costume and choice of words. Considering the weapon used could be a seventh step since some robberies could match up on the type of weapon used hence creating a link. The description of the gateway car could be the ninth step, as well as checking whether other police stations have a similar record of such a vehicle (Orthmann, 2012). The tenth step should be checking whether suspects for the crime(s) were arrested and if so, the process of identification. These ten steps could create possible links that could help in catching the perpetrators.
Technological Helpance
Technological Helpance necessary to conduct the investigative steps would include facial recognition software and algorithm-driven software. Facial recognition is a new biometric technology that helps the police identify people by connecting the patterns on their faces. Police around the world are using the system as it helps find people quickly based on the photos submitted over the internet through social media accounts, webcams, atm cameras, or traffic light cameras. Standards and best practices are still underway for the system, but it has proved to be reliable in narrowing down suspects instead of the old fashioned way of gathering possible suspects for identification. Algorithm driven software is another technological Helpance that proves to be stable since it can be used to predict crime. It is an Artificially Intelligent system that makes decisions that are bias-free based on input data. The data used in the algorithm is widely based on a range of “leading indicator” data such as crime reports, simple assaults, vandalism, and disorderly conduct, and 911 calls about weapons, shots fired, or words said (Riland, 2018). The algorithm can be used for both misdemeanor and violent crimes.
Measures to analyze the pattern of robbery activity
Through technological Helpance, it will be possible to analyze the design of robbery activities. The investigative steps’ results should be mapped on a whiteboard for ease of connecting the dots among several crimes. A whiteboard also gives a bigger picture to the police officers since one may get new ideas for handling the case when analyzing the patterns. This data should produce some information that could be useful when input into the algorithm software. Aspects such as getaway vehicles, weapons, words used by the robber, and witness statements could constitute the data necessary to determine whether there is a possible suspect in the system or the likelihood of the crime retaking place. Keeping fellow police officers up to speed would also be a vital measure to ensure that there is teamwork and more information is given. Sometimes, police officers may have additional information concerning a crime due to their professional experience.
Synthesizing the data and coming to a conclusion based on the data
Before concluding, it is necessary to analyze the information collected, develop theories, and establish reasonable grounds/suspicion to believe. It is on reasonable grounds to believe that police units are able identify possible suspects and act accordingly. If this part is not handled wisely, the police may not be granted an arrest or search warrant. Synthesizing the information will include analyzing the output evidence and information given by the Helpive technology and rationally thinking if it all adds up. Police should not rely on the software a hundred percent because machines do not act on emotions. Before concluding, the investigator needs to think whether justice will be served if the community will be protected and consider the safety of persons. A conclusion is a significant step during an investigation since the judge will need to understand the investigative thinking of the investigator.
Investigative units would Help in the operation to catch the perpetrators
The investigative units that would be appropriate in handling the case would fall under federal law enforcement in the department of justice. They would include the Police Agencies and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Police agencies are most useful since they handle most of the crimes within an area and are most likely to have more data. It would be easier to combine the use of several police agencies, especially those that report similarities in the types of weapons used, witness statements, or gateway vehicles. Such agencies would help in gathering up more information. Primarily if the police departments work together. The FBI could also be involved considering the robberies are more frequent than usual. Even though the FBI handles more serious crimes than the police agencies, they could be involved in matters that are getting out of hand. These two police units could work together to catch the perpetrators.
Supplies/equipment to enable the investigation and Funding
The police unit could use the purchase of technological equipment as discussed above. Law enforcement algorithm-driven software to Help with facial recognition and algorithms would be the most appropriate since they do half the work for the unit. Some of the software in the market include ArcGIS, Dragon Speech Recognition. ArcGIS is a useful tool as it helps with dispatch, field reporting, incident mapping, and scheduling. This software keeps a log of all activity and police officers can use the history for investigative work. Dragon Speech Recognition offers solutions for those in the legal field, allowing them to create and streamline documents for faster turnaround. Since the money allocated for the investigation is low, it would be best to procure more funds from bond issues where private investors fund public projects (Spacesaver, 2019). Since the robberies affect most of the area, there could be willing investors to help out.
In conclusion, City X can curb robbery activities within the area if they apply the necessary techniques and acquire funding. Series of robberies are easy to mitigate since sooner or later they leave trails of evidence behind. It is possible to connect these patterns to form a bigger picture that helps catch the perpetrators. Through collaborations of various law enforcement officers, even those in other cities, it is possible to get similar patterns that help with the investigation. However, investigators should realize that streamlining their investigation steps is the first most vital step in catching a robber. These steps give out results that could be compiled to give a better output. Technology has made it easier to make use of this data and could be used within a court of law to back up evidence and contribute to probable cause or suspicion
References
Orthmann, C. (2012). Criminal Investigation (pp. 402). Cengage Learning. Retrieved 4 November 2019, from https://books.google.co.ke/books?id=rdEJAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA402&dq=steps+involved+in+a+robbery+investigation&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi7ldyp4s_lAhWrzoUKHVF1CXgQ6AEINDAC#v=onepage&q=steps%20involved%20in%20a%20robbery%20investigation&f=false
Rieland, R. (2018). Artificial Intelligence Is Now Used to Predict Crime. But is it Biased. Retrieved 4 November 2019, from https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/artificial-intelligence-is-now-used-predict-crime-is-it-biased-180968337/
Spacesaver, (2019). How to get Funding For Capital Projects for Law Enforcement. Retrieved 4 November 2019, from https://www.spacesaver.com/markets/public-safety-storage/space-optimization/funding-sources-for-police-departments/
