Investigating Murder: Detective Work and the Police Response to Criminal Homicide

Investigating Murder provides a unique insight into how police detectives investigate and solve murders. Based upon fieldwork observation of murder squads at work, interviews with detectives and detailed analysis of police case files, it provides an original and innovative account of the practices and processes involved in the investigation of homicides, as well as some of the problems that are often encountered in the conduct of this work. Drawing upon the detailed empirical data collected, the book develops a conceptual framework for understanding the methods that detectives seek to utilise in order to identify suspects and construct a case against them. Situating such work in its social and legal context this major study shows how interviews, forensic evidence, and other investigative techniques are used by detectives to manufacture a narrative of the crime that sets out how the incident took place, and who did what to whom. In so doing, the book does much to further our understandings of detective work, how detectives understand their role, the problems they encounter and the solutions they manufacture to solve these problems. The description and analysis provided will be of interest to academic researchers and students in the fields of policing and criminology, as well as practitioners working in the criminal justice system.

PART 1: SETTING THE SCENE ; 1. Detective Work ; 2. Murder ; 3. Law ; 4. The Social Organisation of Murder Squads ; PART 2: TOWARDS A THEORY OF CRIME INVESTIGATION ; 5. Information Work ; 6. Investigative Technologies ; 7. Investigative Methodology ; PART 3: THE PROCESS OF THE INVESTIGATION ; 8. Self-solvers ; 9. Whodunits ; 10. Murder Investigations In Extremis ; PART 4: CONCLUSION ; 11. Crime Investigation and the Creation of Collective Memory