dimanche 3 décembre 2017

How should crime be investigated?

I would like an overhaul of how crime is investigated. The main change is that I think that the police should be split into two.

One part are trained investigators, who have degree qualifications and whose prime role is to find and gather evidence. They are the existing CID officers, but they are brighter and work to a higher standard.

They should be fully compliant with the duty to investigate all reasonable lines of enquiry including that which may be exculpatory evidence and the duty to disclose ALL evidence. They should be better aware of the right to presumption of innocence.

The other part of the police are the first responders to incidents, who deal with minor crime, disturbances and who have training in crime scene preservation for major crime. They are the existing uniformed officers, from response, community firearms etc policing. They also know about duty to investigate etc, but they deal with minor crimes.

Both should then submit ALL the evidence to the prosecutor who then decides if someone is to be charged or not and if any more enquiry is needed. They act as an independent quality control check. The police should not have that power to charge any more. They can only report a person with an evidence file.

In effect that would make defence lawyers jobs far easier, as they should find there is pretty much nothing they have to investigate. If they do think somethign has been missed, they can request enquiry.

The judge/sheriff/jury then gets presented with pretty much all the evidence, in a far more matter of fact way than the present story telling a version of events that goes on in courts. The court decides from the evidence.

I think that would reduce miscarriages of justice and drive up the quality of investigation.


via International Skeptics Forum http://ift.tt/2kj5IRx

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