Chapter 7: The Follow-Up Investigation and Investigative Resources
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Chapter 7
The Follow-Up Investigation and Investigative
Resources
Objectives
1. Describe the use of solvability factors.
2. Explain the preparation of a case file.
3. Discuss reinterviewing victims and witnesses.
4. Describe the purpose and use of NamUs.
5. Summarize NCIC (National Crime Information Center) files and capabilities.
6. Explain LeadsOnLine.
7. Identify behaviors in which investigators should not engage with informants.
8. State the purposes of physical surveillance.
Introduction
Certain crimes, such as murder, rape, and child abuse, are always going to receive a follow-up
investigation. To ensure that the use of investigative resources is warranted, other crimes are
Lecture Notes
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I. The Decision to Initiate a Follow-Up Investigation
The follow-up investigation is the period of police effort expended on a case from the time the
incident report is completed until it is unfounded, determined that it did not happen as the
complainant alleged, turned over for prosecution, or inactivated.
In some models, each solvability factor may have a different mathematical weight attached to it.
These weights must total a certain number of points for a case to be referred for follow-up. Some
of the common solvability factors include the following:
• Is the suspect’s identity known?
II. The Follow-Up Investigation Process
As a visual aid to follow-up investigators, some departments have checklists. The steps involved
in a follow-up investigation do not necessarily occur in an exact order. The specifics of each case
will dictate how those steps actually unfold.
III. Reviewing the Incident and Supplemental Reports
The incident and supplemental reports may answer many of the follow-up investigator’s initial
questions, such as the following:
• How, when, and where the crime was committed, including a chronological description of
the events.
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IV. The Jail Booking Report
The jail booking report is created when a subject is in-processed at a jail. This jail may be part of
the investigator’s agency, or it may be operated by another entity, such as the sheriff. The
booking report is often computer generated and may have an incident report integrated into it, as
V. The Vehicle Impoundment Report
If a suspect is arrested while driving a vehicle, the vehicle is inventoried and towed to an
impoundment lot. The impounding report should be carefully read. Under most circumstances, a
VI. Field Contacts and Interviews
In policing today, policies provide clear guidance about what many departments are calling (1)
consensual contacts and (2) stops. The Tucson, Arizona Police Department’s (TPD) guidance to
its officers on these subjects is as follows:
• Consensual contacts: The police may make mutually voluntary consensual contacts at any
time from wherever they can legally be.
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VII. Traffic Citations
As with FCR or FIR cards, traffic citations can link suspects to the vehicles they register and
VIII. Examining Physical Evidence
The physical evidence should be viewed early in the investigation because it may soon be
IX. Reinterviewing Victims and Witnesses
Victims or their families should be contacted very early in the process. They often have
questions about the status of the case, their rights, whether they need protection, how a case gets
X. Leads
Some leads turn out to be “good,” whereas others are simply “dry holes” and an unproductive
XI. Using Databases
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The use of databases allows investigators to rapidly close off some lines of inquiry, encourage
the continuance of others, and suggest new ones.
A. International
One of the most frequently used databases of the International Criminal Police Organization
B. National
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATFE) has multiple capabilities.
It trains firearms examiners and operates NIBIN, a ballistic intelligence database.
Today, EPIC is an all-threats intelligence center staffed by personnel from 21 different
agencies. Despite some shifts in mission, the National Drug Pointer Index (NDPI), which
became operational in 1997, has remained a constant.
The FBI maintains the National Crime Information Center (NCIC), which is the most
comprehensive criminal justice data set in the country. Established in 1967, its structure has
been periodically refined.
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The FBI also has other capabilities that support investigations. The purpose of the National
Begun in 1999, the FBI’s Next Generation Identification (NGI) Program is producing the
world’s largest set of biometric data to supplement its fingerprint records. Biometric simply
C. Regional Information Sharing Systems (RISS)
There are six multistate RISS centers. Each of the six centers, funded by the federal
D. State and Local Systems
State information systems are robust; they contain files on over 100 million offenders. State
information systems include wanted, missing, and endangered persons; stolen property;
E. Nonprofit and Private Sources
The Law Enforcement Intelligence Unit (LEIU) was formed in 1956 by 29 local and state
law enforcement agencies to exchange information about organized crime not available
through normal police channels.
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LeadsOnLine is a private subscription service used by more than 1,600 law enforcement
agencies. It provides access to transactions from thousands of reporting businesses, including
scrap metal processors, secondhand stores, Internet drop-off stores, pawnshops, and eBay.
XII. Informants
Informants provide information that is of investigative significance. They may expect to be paid
or to receive consideration on charges pending against them or family members, or they
XIII. Surveillance
While some think of surveillance as “following,” it actually means the continued observance of
individuals, groups, locations, areas, and particular things. It is an important investigative tool
and at times may be the only way of obtaining factual information.
A. The Purposes of Surveillance
The purposes of surveillance include the following:
• Determining whether suspected criminal activity exists.
• Gathering intelligence on illegal activities by individuals, groups, and organizations.
• Obtaining probable cause for a search warrant.
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watched.
• Gathering information for an ongoing investigation.
B. Types and Levels of Surveillance
Broadly, there are two types of surveillance: physical and technical/electronic. Physical
surveillance may be:
• Casual surveillance includes taking note of cars present, persons seen, and so forth each
time you happen to drive by the surveillance area, and it doesn’t require any additional
Technical/electronic surveillance may be accomplished by ongoing mechanical monitoring
equipment, the use of which may require a court order.
C. Planning for Surveillance
The most important aspect of every surveillance plan is the safety of the officers. All
XIV. Guidelines for Conducting Show-Ups, Photo Arrays/Lineups, and Live Lineups
Eyewitnesses may be requested to see if they recognize anyone connected with the crime in one
of three procedures: (1) a show-up, (2) a photo array/lineup, and (3) a live lineup.
A. The Show-Up
A show-up allows the police to conduct an immediate eyewitness identification of someone
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B. Choosing Between the Photo Array and a Live Lineup
The assigned investigator determines whether a case requires the use of a photo array or live
lineup and usually is responsible for all aspects of preparing them—for example, completion
C. Photo Array Lineups: Step by Step
A photo array lineup (commonly referred to as a photo lineup) is a procedure in which a
series of usually six photographs, each in a separate folder, are shown sequentially to a
D. Live Lineups
A live lineup is a process in which a series of real people are shown to an eyewitness to
XV. Staged Crime Scenes
There are no official statistics on how often investigators encounter staged crime scenes, but
there is some limited evidence that about 3% of all cases may involve some element of staging.
XVI. Cold Case Investigation
A cold case is the most extreme form of a follow-up investigation because it is the reopening of
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cases to investigators.
XVII. Fusion Centers
Following 9/11, it was concluded that if the isolated parcels of information known about the
terrorists and their activities before the attacks had been pooled and analyzed, the attacks may
There are two types of fusion centers:
• Primary fusion centers. A primary fusion center typically provides information sharing
XVIII. Intelligence Analysis and Crime Analysis
In the 1960s, few law enforcement agencies had intelligence units. Typically, agencies
accumulated vast amounts of information, such as incident reports, citations, field interview
reports, and simply filed them. As data accumulated, more and more filing cabinets were bought.
A. The Intelligence/Analytical Cycle
Intelligence is a five- or six-part cycle driven by the needs of the end user of what analysis
produces. The five-part intelligence cycle is used by the CIA and the U.S. Departments of
Justice and State, as well as numerous other agencies. Sometimes it is called the six-part
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B. 1. Planning and Direction
The intelligence analysis process is directed at two primary levels: (1) police executives must
C. 2. Collection
The gathering and reporting of the raw information that is needed to produce finished
intelligence is called collection. Sources of information that are available to everyone are
D. 3. Processing/Collation
The goal of processing is to transform the data collected into forms that facilitate its
E. 4. Analysis and Production
This is the phase in which data are worked with to produce a finished intelligence product. It
F. 5. Dissemination
G. 6. Reevaluation
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H. Crime Analysis
A fuller definition of crime analysis is that it relies on a set of quantitative and qualitative
techniques to analyze data valuable to police agencies and their communities.
Within tactical crime analysis is the technique of linking crimes together. When this can be
successfully accomplished, the information in multiple incident reports is combined and may
form the basis for special police attention, for example, hot spots and/or provide investigative
leads. Commonly used methods to link crimes include the following:
• Trends. Trends are general tendencies in the occurrence of crime across large
geographic areas over extended periods of time.
I. Crime Scene Reconstruction
Reconstruction of past events is routine in law enforcement. A domestic violence call crime
J. Criminal Investigative Analysis
The FBI stopped using the term criminal profiling in favor of criminal investigative analysis,
which it saw as a broadening of the services provided to law enforcement agencies, which
now include some of the following:
• Indirect personality assessments
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K. Geographic Profiling
Geographic information system (GIS) software provides the capability to superimpose various
types of data on a map. Geographic profiling, or geoprofiling, is a specialty that rests on the
L. Remote Sensing
Remote sensing is the process of collecting and analyzing information about areas, objects, or
events without being in contact with the focus of analysis. Aerial remote sensing can be used
M. Time-Event Charting and Link Analysis
Follow-up investigations often result in the accumulation of significant amounts of data. As a
result, financial transactions, relationships, the importance of places, events, telephone calls,
N. The Internet
The possibilities of the Internet have not escaped law enforcement, which has been quick to
use it for investigative, administrative, and public information purposes.