Introduction: Defining criminal investigation
Martin O’Neill · Policy Press eBooks · 2018
You only have to look at the daily press to read real-life stories involving criminal investigations. The cases reported do not necessarily indicate a rise or fall in crime or in particular crimes, because often the cases reported are noteworthy ones, judged to be of particular public interest by journalists, editors and publishers (Brodeur, 2010). Murders and other violent crimes continue to receive publicity irrespective of whether their rates are rising or falling. It is sometimes difficult to discern what the underlying motives are on the part of the media for publishing particular stories (Reiner, 2008). What publicity does though, is bring criminal investigation to the attention of the public. Add to that the wealth of literature dedicated to crime fiction, and the public’s fascination with it, and it is easy to see why criminal investigation is often at the forefront of public consciousness. People appear to love the whodunits, the cases of note, and the way the police sleuth tracks down their prey with skill, intelligence and tenacity. Maybe that idealised picture of an investigation has happened in real, modern-day cases, but much of what is depicted has been shown to be far removed from reality by academic research. Successive studies in the USA in the late 1960s and early 1970s (see, for instance: Isaacs, 1967; Greenwood, 1970; Greenberg et al, 1972) culminated in the much debated RAND study (Greenwood et al, 1977). Combined, these studies challenged myths by concluding that crimes were mostly solved by patrol officers and members of the public, not by detectives.