ANDREA CAMPBELL

Investigative Techniques

ANDREA CAMPBELL has a degree in criminal justice, is a trained forensic sculptor and artist, and is editor for the Arkansas Identification News. She has authored books about criminal justice and forensic science, and her Legal Ease: A Guide to Criminal Law, Evidence and Procedure is used as a university textbook. Andrea is also the forensic specialist on a blog featuring professional women in the criminal justice industry (Women In Crime Ink), which has garnered over 200,000 hits and is what The Wall Street Journal calls a “must read.”

 

 

The study of forensic science disciplines and the actual cases of criminal law are stories you can find nowhere else outside of the criminal justice industry. In my book Legal Ease, I write: “Laws truly are a mirror, holding up to its face, images of societal change. The events of men and women in desperate situations, entwined by the law in sometimes unbelievable ways, show us a continuing story of how a country deals with population growth, lack of resources and opportunities for all, immigrant expansion, open boarders, and fanatical hate.” What could be more exciting than that!

I came into forensics through the back door. I studied graphology—the study of handwriting analysis—with a Catholic priest who used it in his counseling of couples, girls’ school students, and inmates in a men’s prison. Little did I know that scientists consider graphology a kind of cult, little better than reading newspaper horoscopes. Still, knowledge about it led me to membership in the American College of Forensic Examiners, where I was member 471 in an organization that now has over 15,000 professional associates. This introduction allowed me to research, write about, and study with working law enforcement officers, FBI agents, and scientists, and I began to chronicle these disciplines at a feverish pace—it was such a new, exhilarating world. I earned a Diplomate and Fellowship standing for advancing the field of criminalistics through my writing. And soon I was learning behavioral profiling from FBI agent and famous criminal profiler John Douglas, molding clay with Betty Pat Gatliff, a pioneer in forensic sculpture using skulls, and making eyewitness drawings under the watchful eye of Karen T. Taylor, a renowned forensic artist and frequent guest on America’s Most Wanted!

If you are going to write about criminal law and forensic science investigation for mysteries, thrillers, and other subgenres, I urge you to get it right. Through research, you can include viable details as you develop and analyze frantic characters in desperate situations doing desperate things. Here are some investigative technique tips to help you out.

Verisimilitude: this is a big word that you should know. It means, the appearance of something that is true or real. The steps in how your mystery or thriller character proceeds, the details of his investigation, and the statements that he makes regarding a criminal case must ring true. There are too many experts out in reader-land, and if you try to fudge or write something that doesn’t seem believable, you’ve lost your credibility as a writer, but just as important, you’ve probably lost readers. Faux pas in writing are indelible—they are inscribed in ink on paper or as digital text in e-readers, and, unlike a misstep in a conversation that you can apologize for, errors are there for the lifetime of your publication.

You, the writer, should try not to use stereotypes. Stereotypes are hackneyed writing tags that are overused and never seem to change, even though time marches on. Cop clichés are what make those in law enforcement angry when they read a mystery or see a movie.

I wrote an article for The Writer and created a popular sidebar, “10 Things Police Wish You Would Omit.” In it, I exposed shopworn and often erroneous characterizations, including cops always shown eating doughnuts or portrayed as fighting alcoholism. Today’s police officers are just as likely to work out, drink bottled water, or help someone else get off booze. And they are not likely to be found in such phony circumstances as ordering someone to surrender a gun by throwing it, or hiding behind a car door when being shot at—unless they have a death wish.

Now that you know how important it is to get the procedural and descriptive details about police, investigation, and crime scenes right, how do you conduct an investigation? Try the following exercise and fine-tune your own procedures.

EXERCISE

You could be the ultimate researcher and ask your local police department if you could ride along during a squad car patrol, but it would probably not transpire because of the liabilities involved and the department’s lack of insurance to cover you.

The second-best way to gather details is to befriend a law enforcement official and ask questions. This, you must understand, is most likely a one-time shot, as policemen and policewomen have lives and can spend only a limited amount of time helping writers. You can shorten your interview time by asking cogent questions and working with more than one source.

Failing live sources, the alternative is to exercise your right as an American citizen and attend criminal courtroom cases when court is in session and the public is welcome. The prosecutor will generally call police and forensic scientists to outline their “day in the life,” so to speak, and you can hear it in a linear way, since cases generally follow an understandable time line.

Another way to avail yourself of the facts is to read academic or trade books and periodicals. If you have a criminal justice degree or some type of background in criminalistics, you can join a professional organization and subscribe to its periodicals and newsletters and attend its conventions and training conferences. As a trained forensic sculptor and artist, I am a member of the International Association for Identification and have been able to attend annual training workshops that have taught me everything from rolling major case prints, to how to cook meth, and the correct way to collect evidence, among dozens of other disciplines—so much training, in fact, I would never have been able to afford it on my own, even if it were available to the public.

Whatever method you employ to learn investigative techniques, a few things can help. The first is to know that there is no standardization ; investigative techniques differ from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. The way detectives collect evidence in Hot Springs, Arkansas, will be different from how local law enforcement does it in Austin, Texas; Santa Barbara, California; or New York, New York. Tasks and methodology vary according to the resources available, time allotment, and the training commitment within a particular department.

Incorporate the methods I’ve described: interviewing the principals, including police officers, detectives, and prosecutors; forging connections with others in the criminal justice industry; reading trade texts and periodicals; learning a discipline or earning a degree; joining a professional organization and going to conferences; and attending local courtroom cases. If you do so, you’ll be well on your way to gathering the information you need to write in the most accurate way possible about police procedures and detective investigations.