How Jobs are Being Done? Research on Homicide Investigations.

• In Event: Narratives of Police Work

Abstract

No matter how popular are CSI alike TV shows homicide investigations are still "the least understood aspect of policing" (Innes&Brookman, 2013). The death investigations are not an exception, since "the history of criminology marginalized the (...) techniques in the pursuit of the criminal" (Valier, 1998). Available literature (with some exceptions, like: Innes, 2003) focuses on proposing different approaches toward criminal investigations, however it is limited to the presentation of theoretical assumptions that are often supported by examples of mistakes made in the course of specific investigations. This applies both to classic works (Geberth 2006; Walton 2006), but also to research approach studies delivered with the assistance of the leading police forces and think-tanks (ACPO 2006; Cronin 2008). Among the main reasons of that significant gap in the existing literature is the problem with getting access by researchers to the criminal investigators and their work.
The paper will present and discuss the course of the parallel research on homicide investigations that took place in United States (2014-2016) and in Poland (2012-2016).

Author

• Pawel Waszkiewicz, University of Warsaw