Criminal Justice: CRJU 2500 Written Communications

Report Writing for Law Enforcement

When learning about Written Communication in Criminal Justice, students will gain a basic understanding of the following topics:

Investigation Basics
The Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How of Investigations
The Rules of Narrative Writing
Note Taking
The Importance of Field Notes
Describing Persons and Property
Categorizing People for a Report
Describing Property in a Report
Photos and Sketches
Writing Evidence Reports
Establishing the Chain of Custody
Crime Reports
Purpose of a Crime Report
Arrest Reports
Arrest Report Styles
Report Formats
Writing the Interview
The Purpose of the Interview
Writing Search Warrants
The Warrant Process
Writing the Affidavit
Including Expert Opinions
The Return to the Warrant
Issues in Writing
Record Management Systems

Investigative report: Permanent written document that communicates information about an incident to authorized readers

The five W's and H of Investigations:

Who: reporting party, involved, suspect, suspects's friends and associates, who knows what happened, whom to talk to, witnesses, victim

What: happened, what was the victim doing, what was used, what happened since called, what do we know, what needs to be done, what time, time of discovery, what time was I called, and what is the relationship between the suspect and the victim

Where: where did it happen, where is teh victim, where is the informant, where is the evidence, where is the witnesses, 

When: when did it happen, when was it reported, when was the victim last seen, when was the suspect last seen

Why: why did it happen, why was it reported, why did the witnesses not say or tell something, why did the witness tell you certain things, why did the crime happen the way it did

How:how did the event happen, how did suspect or victim get there, how did the suspect get away, how did the suspect know the victim, how was the event reported, how old is the crime, how much more needs to be done

Average Person Test: When describing something or evidence of a crime make sure that the objective of writing is complete and can be understood by the average person. The average person should be able to pick the object described from a group of similar items.

Reasonable Particularity: Standard in describing property such as residence, businesses, real property, or vehicles. The description should be detailed enough for any officer to be able to read it and know the exact location or vehicle that is in a search warrant.

When writing a report investigators should leave opinions out of the writing and only use facts.

Facts: Things based on actual occurrences, something that actually exists. Things that can be proven.

Opinion: beliefs, someone's view, a guess based on what someone knows, may not be accurate.

Rules of narrative writing:

1. Write in first person: I, me

2. Past Tense: Describe events or actions that have already happened. Ex: saw, told, said, went, found, smelled, wrote

3. Active Voice: who is doing the action. Ex: I wrote the report, I arrested Brown

4. Chronological order: Start report with Date, time, and how you got involved

5.Short, clear, concise, and concrete words: use words that have only one meaning and not multiple meanings if written in a sentence. 

Note taking is an essential part of report writing. Note taking helps investigators remember information and helps to recall when asked about an event days, months, or even years down the road. 

Basic uses of Field notes:

Storage

Building blocks

Aid to memory

Mechanics of note taking:

Readable: Good penmanship, must be able to read it further down the road

Accurate: correct information, measurements are correct, names spelled correctly, phone numbers and addresses are correct with no errors

Factual: no personnel opinions

Concise: be concise try to avoid abbreviations. clear and complete words

Complete: do not remove pages from notebook. Note Mistakes an correct with accurate information instead of removing pages

Information to include in notes:

Weather: describe the weather conditions during the investigation. temperature, raining, wind conditions etc.

Measurements: accurate measurements

Sketches: crime scene sketch

Drawings: draw specific markings for later identification or draw an object to identify

Keywords and phrases: writing the words the suspect used during commission of a crime and when a suspect confesses to a crime

Personnel information: only include business related information such as name, business name, investigator name, date. Always be professional