The temporal order of retrospective burglary and robbery criminal investigations: An exploratory ‘black box’ analysis
| Author | Danielle Victory,Seth Wyatt Fallik |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X17751862 |
| Date | 01 March 2019 |
| Published date | 01 March 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
The temporal order of
retrospective burglary
and robbery criminal
investigations: An exploratory
‘black box’ analysis
Seth Wyatt Fallik and Danielle Victory
School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, College of Design and Social
Inquiry, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, Florida, USA
Abstract
In the absence of empirical knowledge, public expectations of criminal investigations
have been largely informed by fictional and/or dramatised depictions of detective work.
To address this issue, incident report data from 243 retrospective burglary and robbery
cases were paired with self-report surveys from 40 detectives who indicated the
activities and the date they performed them for each of the cases they were assigned.
The results suggest that the temporal order of retrospective burglary and robbery
criminal investigations is more nuanced than previously acknowledged. Policy implica-
tions and areas of future research are discussed from these findings.
Keywords
Criminal investigations, detective work, temporal order
Introduction
From novelised crime solvers to television networks dedicated to true crime program-
ming, criminal investigations are an enormous part of popular culture. Unfortunately,
literary and cinematic depictions of detective work are often fictional or dramatised for
entertainment purposes. Though they are rarely empirically based, crime dramas have
become the dominant representation of detective work and have distorted public
Corresponding author:
Seth Wyatt Fallik, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, College of Design and Social Inquiry, Florida
Atlantic University, 777 Glades Road, SO 219, Boca Raton, Florida 33431, USA.
Email: sfallik@fau.edu
The Police Journal:
Theory, Practice and Principles
2019, Vol. 92(1) 3–22
ªThe Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/0032258X17751862
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expectations of criminal investigations (Reiner, 2008). As a consequence of this issue,
the CSI effect
1
leads many citizens to believe that detectives can produce evidence, solve
cases and obtain convictions for every crimereportedtopolice(see,forexample,
Schweitzer and Saks, 2007). This belief is so widely held that prosecutors often seek
forensic evidence testing, regardless of its probative value, in appeasement of jurors who
have come to expect this type of evidence to be presented in court (Erickson, 2015).
The reality is that, while national crime rates have been declining (Federal Bureau
of Investigation, 1995–2015), clearance rates in the United States remain lower than
public expectations (Pew Research Center, 2017). Though agencies vary (Eck, 1983),
in the last 20 years, less than one in four burglaries or robberies were cleared by police.
This has come at a substantial cost to law enforcement legitimacy. Horvath et al.
(2001), in a representative survey of 3,123 law enforcement agencies nationwide,
suggested that clearance rates may have plateaued because detective work has
remained relatively unchanged in the last 40 years. As a catalyst for change, research
on detective work has been scarce. In fact, studies on criminal investigations, as an area
of intrigue, have often been characterised by prior researchers as ‘limited’ (Horvath
et al., 2001: 111), ‘neglected’ (Waegel, 1982: 452) and ‘outdated’ (Greenwood et al.,
1977: 37). Furthermore, existing research on the temporal ordering of detective activ-
ities in criminal investigations tends to rest on modest methodological finding s. Con-
sequently, very little is known about how detective activities are ordered in criminal
investigations.
The purpose of this study is to overcome the limits of prior research by exploring the
‘black box’ of the criminal investigations process. Forty burglary and robbery detectives
with the Houston Police Department identified the cases they were assigned, the activ-
ities they performed and the date for their investigative efforts. This information was
paired with incident report data from 243 cases assigned to the sampled detectives during
a 30-day period of observation. Cases in these analyses were disaggregated by the
offence, investigation day and the number of separate days the case was investigated.
In doing so, this study seeks to understand the temporal arrangements of detective
activities in burglary and robbery investigations and advance our knowledge of detective
work for the explicit purpose of improving public safety. Prior to discussing the data,
these analyses begin by situating this study in the extant literature on case processing,
detective work and criminal investigations.
Background
Case processing in the criminal justice system is typically initiated following a citizen’s
call for service, where emergency dispatchers refer cases in need of immediate police
attention to patrol officers. Upon arriving on the scene, patrol officers have three prio-
rities: (1) assess emergencies, (2) secure the area and (3) conduct a preliminary inves-
tigation (Orthmann and Hess, 2013). Prior research indicates that the quality of
preliminary investigations greatly influences case processing outcomes (Glick and Ric-
cio, 1979; Greenwood et al., 1977). Unfortunately, the range of activities that patrol
officers are able to perform while at a scene is often dictated by an endless flow of calls
for service (Eck, 1983). Eck (1983), for example, reported that patrol officers will spend
4The Police Journal: Theory, Practice and Principles 92(1)
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