Criminal Investigation

1. Chapter 3
Writing Effective Reports
◼ Hess/Orthmann/Cho, Criminal Investigation, Eleventh Edition. © 2017 Cengage. All Rights Reserved.
May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.

2. ◼ Report Writing in Criminal Justice
◼ Criminal justice professionals write countless reports as
part of their day-to-day job responsibilities.
◼ Well-written reports document actions, provide
information or data, facilitate investigations, and
showcase the professionalism of the writer.
◼ By contrast, a poorly written report creates an
inaccurate portrayal of the competence level of the
writer.

4. ◼ Report formats vary from agency to agency, depending on
the mission of the agency and what types of incidents and
investigations that agency is charged with conducting.
◼ Thelayout for these reports typically includes a standard set
of questions that must be answered: the who, what, when,
where, why, and how regarding an incident.

6. ◼ Reports are permanent records of important facts of a
case to be used in the future and are a crucial and
necessary part of police work
◼ Reports are used to:
◼ Examine the past
◼ Keep other police agencies informed
◼ Continue investigations

7. ◼ Prepare court cases
◼ Provide the courts with relevant facts
◼ Coordinate law enforcement activities
◼ Refresh a witnesses memory about what
he or she said occurred
◼ Refresh the investigating officer’s memory
during the trial
◼ Provide information to insurance
investigators

8. ◼ Reports are read by:
◼ Other officers
◼ Supervisors
◼ Attorneys and judges
◼ Jurors
◼ City officials
◼ Insurance adjustors and investigators
◼ Citizens
◼ Reporters

10. EFFECTIVE REPORTS
◼ The effective report writer attends to both content and
form because they are equally important in a well written
report
◼ An effective report is factual, accurate, objective,
complete, concise, Clear, grammatically and mechanically
correct, written in standard English, organized into
paragraphs and written in the past tense, uses the first
person

12. ◼ THE WRITING PROCESS
◼ Gather Information
◼ Record and write down details
◼ Sort Information
◼ Organize Outline
◼ Rough Draft-Evaluate proofread
◼ Final Draft-proof read

14. ◼ Good Report Writing:
◼ Accurate-exactly what happened
◼ Complete: all necessary information
◼ Concise: necessary essential information, no opinions
◼ Organized facts: chronological and complete
◼ Understandable: appropriate words
◼ Neat
◼ Timely

16. ◼ Writing style:
◼ Abstract: He was tall
◼ Concrete: he was approximately 6 feet
tall
◼ Opinion: The man looked drunk
◼ Factual: Smelled alcohol, stumbled,
slurred speech

18. ◼ Reports in Law Enforcement
◼ The most common types of law enforcement reports
include the following:
◼ Offense or incident report
◼ Arrest report
◼ Supplemental reports

20. ◼ Offense or Incident Report
◼
◼ Offense or incident report-most frequently
prepared
◼ Virtually every department has its own unique or
personalized form for reporting an offense or incident.
◼ The information required to complete these forms is
basically the same.

21. ◼ This preliminary report is completed by the
investigating officer and is used to document all crimes
and investigations
◼ In addition to the basic information, these reports also
identify the victim(s), witnesses, suspects, informants
or reporters, and any assisting officers and provide
addresses and contact information for these individuals

22. ◼ The use of the fill-in-the-blank or open portions for the
offense or incident report to collect needed
demographic and statistical data allows the
investigating officer to focus on details in the narrative
section.
◼ The narrative is the most critical part of any offense or
incident report.
◼ It is an important part of any sound offense or incident
report and should be clear, concise, complete, and
correct while addressing a detailed account of the
incident.

24. ◼ The investigating officers should construct a narrative
that tells a story, including all the main players and
their actions during the investigation and their
testimony regarding their observations, as well as a
detailed description of the crime scene and any
evidence collected.
◼ The information contained in the narrative should be in
chronological form and should allow the reader to
envision the scene and follow the investigation through
the facts as presented.

25. ◼ Arrest Report
◼ Arrest reports share many commonalities with offense
or incident reports, with fill-in-the-blank or open
sections focused on the date, time, and location of the
arrest, along with specific demographic information
regarding the person or persons arrested.
◼ However, the information in these reports is used to
support probable cause for an arrest and must be
complete in documenting facts and evidence.

26. ◼ Law enforcement officers involved in an arrest must
know the accurate code, charge, and/or statute
number to include on arrest reports because an
incorrect one can jeopardize the case.
◼ An arrest report should be clear, concise, complete,
and correct.
◼ Law enforcement officers must ensure that the needed
facts to support an arrest are included.

28. ◼ Unlike most offense or incident reports, arrest reports
will be reviewed by prosecutors and judges to ensure
that probable cause was present to warrant the arrest.
◼ Officers can put themselves and their agencies at risk
for a civil lawsuit if the arrest report is questionable
and does not fully address the investigation process.

29. ◼ Arrest reports can appear in newspapers and in
courtrooms. Therefore, you want to ensure that you
provide all relevant information and that your report is
well written so that you do not find that the arrest is
invalidated because of missing details.
◼ You want to be viewed as a competent professional. If
your reports are poorly written, your reputation will
suffer—as will your agency’s reputation.

31. ◼ Using the chronological approach for organizing
your report
◼ Your report should begin with a paragraph giving the
date and time of the incident and the type of incident
and describing how you became involved.
◼ Your second paragraph should discuss what you were
told by the victim(s) and any witnesses (if applicable),
using a separate paragraph for each individual involved
in the incident. The third paragraph should explain
what you did based on the information you received.

32. ◼ And the final paragraph should explain the disposition
of the case. The advantages to following the
chronological approach are that you can use a
storytelling model to discuss the incident in the way it
happened, the reader can easily comprehend the
information put forth in this approach, and you use a
systematic sequence of events to report the incident.

35. ◼ Ask yourself the following questions as you
review your incident report:
◼ Is the description of the incident accurate? Does it give
specific details that are both factual and correct?
◼ Are all elements of the incident properly identified and
explained? Did you provide explicit and concise
information? Did you include all essential information?
◼ Is your report well organized? Did you organize the
information chronologically?

37. ◼ Did you include all necessary information to answer the
questions who, what, when, where, why, how, and
what action was taken?
◼ Are your conclusions supported? Did you include a full
description of the actions on which you based your
conclusion?
◼ Is your report relatively free of errors? Did you use the
proper department form or format?

39. ◼ Field Notes and Note Taking
◼ Every offense or incident report, arrest report, or supplemental
report begins with field notes taken by the officer or investigator.
◼ These notes are vital to the completion of reports as they contain
pertinent information to answer the questions of who, what,
when, where, why, and how
◼ Criminal justice professionals on every level have been instructed
to take notes about any offense, incident, accident, or event they
investigate.
◼ The starting point for every effective report is the field notes you
took from the point you arrived on the scene until the assignment
was completed.
◼ Good field notes are vital to the preparation of a thorough and
inclusive report. So you should be prepared to take notes.

41. ◼ Guidelines for the Note-Taking Process
◼ In addition to having your proper equipment (spiral-
bound notebook in the size and type that best suit your
needs, along with an ink pen or two), you should think
about the basic and primary questions you need to ask
and/or answer: who, what, when, where, why,
and how.

42. ◼ Who?
◼ Who is the victim(s)?
◼ Who is the suspect(s)?
◼ Who are the witnesses?
◼ Who is the informant(s)?
◼ Who are the other officers on scene (if applicable)?
◼ Are any emergency medical personnel on scene? If so, who
are they?

44. ◼ What?
◼ What type of offense has occurred?
◼ What type of action has occurred or is occurring (in the case
of a domestic disorder or neighbor dispute, etc.)?
◼ What behaviors are you observing?
◼ What weapons do you see?
◼ What damage has occurred (if any)?
◼ What was the victim’s routine (if applicable)?
◼ What property is missing (if applicable)?

46. ◼ When?
◼ When did this offense take place, or when was the crime
discovered or reported?
◼ When did you (the officer) arrive and depart?
◼ When did the suspect flee the scene or leave the area (if
known)?

48. ◼ Where?
◼ Where was the offense committed (specific address)?
◼ Where are the victims, witnesses, and suspect(s) now?
◼ Where are the hiding places of suspect(s)?
◼ Where is the suspect’s residence?

50. ◼ Why?
◼ Why was the offense committed? (CAUTION: You may not
have and/or may not be able to discern a motive at this
point in time.)
◼ Why were the victim and suspect(s) in this location?
◼ Why did the suspect choose this victim and this time to
commit this offense?

52. ◼ How?
◼ How was the crime or offense committed?
◼ How did the suspect flee the area (on foot, in a vehicle
[description or license plate number], and direction of
travel)?
◼ How many victims, witnesses, and suspects were involved in
the crime or offense?

54. References
◼ Criminal Investigation: Hess/Orthmann/Cho, Criminal
Investigation, Eleventh Edition.
◼ Effective Communication in Criminal Justice
◼ Publisher: Sage Publications, Incorporate
◼ Author: Grubb 2019