Scenario
A consultant in City X is responsible for creating a plan to deal with the multiple daytime robbery attacks in the area. Police officers have been able to obtain limited information for each robbery. The first business order is to draft a strategic operational/investigative plan to address the crimes.
10 Investigative Steps to Address the Situation
First of all, it is necessary to evaluate the statistical facts about these crimes in city X in order to have an initial point from which to track the dynamics. Daytime robberies are classified into various categories – including classification by the presence of weapons, threats, use of force, presence of hallmarks of a planned activity (Ugwuoke et al., 2021). In addition to information from the police regarding each crime, it is necessary to have a complete picture for a number of reasons. First, if this activity is planned, then it is possible to track down the groups behind them by the specific characteristics of each crime (Ugwuoke et al., 2021). Secondly, if the attacks are not the subject of the activity of one group, but rather occur spontaneously, then in this case there must also be a certain root cause behind this.
Their diversity is quite large: both national political and social factors and more local features of the area can play a role. First of all, poor control by the relevant authorities on the streets or other specified crime scenes may be due to a lack of personnel in a given city, or mismanagement by superiors, involving predictable patrols, poor police training, high levels of stress and reduced efficiency (Nisar & Rasheed , 2020). This investigative plan does not involve dealing with similar root causes of specific crimes, but provides an investigative link that provides the ground for them. In other words, the relevance of this problem is explained not only by particular cases of robberies, but also by a potential solution to the issue in terms of reducing the level of crime in city X.
First, it will be necessary to engage in dialogue with the victims of these crimes, where possible. The initial analysis of the information provided by the police can only give a rough description of the perpetrators, their numbers and the overall nature of the acts. During the dialogue, it is possible to clarify noteworthy details that will become common or, on the contrary, different in each case. Maintaining contact with victims will allow contact to be made at any time when reporting is needed. Second, technical assistance from private companies or government agencies will potentially be needed to provide surveillance footage of potential crime scenes, if any. Such a request must be submitted to all nearby authorities.
In the event that these crimes were committed with the use of violence, thirdly, it would be important to refer to medical reports on the removal of beatings or other bodily or mental injuries of the victims. With the help of expert opinions, it is possible to reconstruct the picture of the attack, and in certain cases, many suspects may turn out to be one person with a characteristic pattern of criminal activity. The fourth step will be to focus on reviewing and controlling all items that have been stolen. If in all cases the matter concerns exclusively cash, then the situation becomes more complicated, however, in the event of theft of any personal items of value, it is possible to connect the tracking of potential distribution channels. It should be started with obvious institutions: pawnshops or private buyers. As a result, in the absence of such data from the victims of the crime, the investigator should additionally request a list of lost items with a detailed description of them and, if possible, with photographs.
The fifth step, which cannot be ruled out, is the compilation of an average portrait of the victim. Robbers can attack both unprotected victims and specific people whose well-being they learn in advance. This information can be obtained from the complex of available materials of investigative cases. First, the crime scene must be analyzed in terms of the average wealth of the local residents: whether the robbers operate in wealthy areas, or vice versa, are concentrated on the periphery of city X, where police control is weaker. Second, classically, daylight robberies are more common among women, teenagers, and the elderly, who are unable to fight back against criminals (Ugwuoke et al., 2021). If the average portrait of the victim differs from the classical one by a statistically significant population result, then there is reason to believe that a planned activity is being carried out.
The sixth key point, which is possible in identifying and formulating suspicions of planned activity, requires contacting the Federal Bureau of Investigation to verify the potential involvement of the group in question on a large scale. The assessment of the composition of the cases in city X should be critically compared with the criminal groups known to the FBI that carry out similar activities. In the absence of any signs or evidence of this seriality or coincidence, it will be useful to learn from experience and compare the activities in the composition of crimes: it is very likely that successfully closed cases in the decisions of the investigating authorities can suggest a methodology for attacking the trail of a criminal.
The seventh step, if the previous ones did not give valuable information, or it turned out to be insufficient to solve cases, involves proactive actions to assess and prevent such robberies in the selected regions of the city. First of all, increasing police control through more active street patrols with more unpredictable schedules will improve public safety. In the case of more serious surveillance by law enforcement agencies of specific areas of the city, at the same time, it is necessary to monitor the potential geographical map of crimes: will it shift to other areas, or will daytime replace nighttime in most attacks, or will they stop altogether. Although even in the latter case, the effect can be maximally useful for society, the criminals remain at large for the investigation and, therefore, additional activities will be required to catch them.
Therefore, as an eighth step, it will already require the involvement of equipment in the form of placing hidden cameras at potential crime scenes, which will be inferred from historical data. The gradual placement of cameras in dangerous places in city X carries a number of risks. Firstly, the ethical issues of surveillance of residents, even for security purposes, must be addressed at the level of the head of the city, with subsequent mandatory termination, as soon as the goals of the investigation are achieved or the crime rate drops by a certain indicator (Pollock, 2021). Secondly, the involvement of such a technical component of the investigation requires certain funding. If at the first stages hidden cameras do not give a result, then in the future their relocation or the addition of new ones will require the search for new sources of funding. In this case, the investigator will again have to turn to the city administration, which is interested in reducing the crime rate for a number of reasons: increasing the tourist attractiveness of the city, improving the welfare and safety of citizens and children on the streets, the political power of the right decisions under the current management for the future elections.
The ninth step involves an attempt to process the received information in an online environment. For example, tracking marketplaces for missing items that appear there, searching for criminals on social networks through features, geolocation or IP address. Establishing closed communities of victims and citizens for quick messaging between all interested parties willing to assist the investigation will also promote public safety and mobility. Finally, integrating geographic data from cameras with appropriate software can give real-time notifications to investigators or police officers to be able to catch the criminal in hot pursuit.
After obtaining data by all these methods, it is possible to draw up a picture of the average robbery in a given city, a portrait of the victim and potential suspects. Summarizing the data is the tenth step, preceding in the ideal scenario of turning the case over to law enforcement agencies with evidence and subsequent arrest and trial. Systematization will include several potential ways to develop the evaluation of information. If the victim profile is significantly different from the classic for such crimes, then the investigator should work towards planned activities and already assess the well-being of victims or other key characteristics. If crimes are committed in the same regions of the city and the described traits of the aggressors are the same among the victims, a group should be considered as a suspect. Finally, against the background of investigative activities, it is important to increase the level of public safety by cooperating with the police and raising funds for hidden cameras or other technical components of the investigation or specialists. At the same time, the goals of catching criminals and measures to reduce the threat of robberies in the daytime should not significantly interfere with each other, otherwise the time period of the investigation may stretch for a long time.
References
Nisar, S. K., & Rasheed, M. I. (2020). Stress and performance: Investigating relationship between occupational stress, career satisfaction, and job performance of police employees. Journal of Public Affairs, 20(1), e1986. Web.
Pollock, J. M. (2021). Ethical dilemmas and decisions in criminal justice. Cengage Learning.
Ugwuoke, C. O., Eze, O. J., Ameh, S. O., Mohammed, A. B., Linus, A., & Aroh, A. (2021). Armed robbery attacks and everyday life in Nigeria. International Journal of Criminal Justice Sciences, 16(1), 186-200.