Criminal Investigation Information Center - A Manual for Police Departments

• NCJ Number: 74152
• Author(s): D R Harris
• Date Published: 1979
• Length: 69 pages
• Sponsoring Agency: US Dept of Justice
• Sale Source: Superintendent of Documents, GPO; National Institute of Justice/
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This manual aids smaller police departments wanting to develop an abridged criminal investigation information center (CIIC) to systematically review, collate, and analyze information in support of investigative planning.

Abstract

The components of the information center are suggested for whole or partial adoption, and the location of the center within the organization is left to individual agencies' discretion. The information center is described for a one-clerk, a clerk-plus-analyst, or a 4-person (clerk analyst, investigator, and supervisor) operation. Essentially, the CIIC concept is that information contained in the normal flow of police reporting can be organized, abstracted, and entered into a series of file formats so that the final product can be used to search for suspects by their associations, geographic area of activity, and reported criminal involvement. The center should have a narrow focus (particulary in the beginning), with this focus being designated by frequency or seriousness of a type of crime and the availability of information on a criminal activity. Information from case files is abstracted so that important items. (e.g., location of crime, type of crime) can be related and retrieved with other like items in the file. Suggested files are name, biographic, criminal activity, group/gang, and location. Individual base report files will have accession numbers for retrieval, and a sensitivity and evaluation code will be assigned to each to indicate degree of confidentiality and the reliability of the information contained in the file. This manual describes in detail the operation of a CIIC, the review, evaluation, and abstracting of reports, the file structure, the report review guidelines, the accession numbering system, and the evaluation and sensitivity coding systems. It also covers file purging, data base computerization, specific CIIC outputs by file, and CIIC tactical and analytic reports. Tables, graphs, and sample forms are provided.