How much follow up?

[zmancarlvr]

I have begun to truly appreciate and understand how many reports and paperwork you officers do on any given shift....

The question I have, is being that you are so busy, how often, or under what circumstances, do you do follow ups on reports?

Be it a Criminal Damage to property, unknown offender, or decpetive practice, or identity theft etc...

Do you actually do a bit of investigative work along with patrol?

Just wondering.

Thanks.

-Z

[MetPC]

I'd imagine this one varies a lot between different Police Forces depending on their resources. A large Force may have different departments which handle the follow up enquiries to free up the patrol officers. In a smaller force the patrol officer may have overall responsibility for the investigation from start to finish.

Where I work at the moment we take a report (initial investigation), document it all then hand it over to another investigating unit who do all the time intensive parts of the investigation (things like chasing up CCTV, handling media enquiries etc).

Where I worked before, unless it was a particularly serious crime, I used to have to do everything start to finish - this obviously reduces the time that you can spend out on the street. When you've got 15-20 ongoing investigations and you're constantly trying to take statements and gather further evidence there's not a lot of time for street work.

[chris2001]

In my department it depends on what type of call it is. For instance I had a theft call that I actually solved that night because primarily the owners of the company new who it was. Therefor I was able to solve that case right away and foreward it to the DA. On the same lines though as far as follow-ups go it all depends on the case, as well as the person that made the report. Generally if its a young couple or a young person reporting as a patrol officer we will not do a follow-up. But if its an elderly couple, man, woman or someone who is just out right scared of the situation then we will do follow-ups. The other thing we always do follow-ups on are suicides.

[TenFifty]

In my dept, unless the crime just recently happened and we have credible information on the whereabouts of the criminals, most follow ups are done by detectives or specialized units. For example, narcotics complaints will be forwarded to narcotics officers, youth complaints to youth officers, etc. It all depends on the circumstances.

[Liter_of_cola]

At my department we do follow ups on almost all of our own cases, now if it is our weekend or a major case it usually goes to investigations, but normally we are kinocking on doors and calling people that same day, or the next.

[DeltaV]

I'll do follow ups if two things fall into place. The first is that I have some identifiable leads about a crime that could produce an arrest If I follow up on it. The second is that there aren't lots of other calls holding in the sector and I have time do to the follow-up.

Given the size of my agency and our call volume, most crimes are shipped off to detectives without patrol doing any follow-ups. The detectives are just as busy as the patrol guys, and for that reason can't put a lot of time into many misdemeanor investigations. Usually, I like to try to do as much as I can on misdemeanor reports that I take. I know there's a good chance they're not going to go anywhere if I don't make an arrest.

[Mike Romeo]

Depending on what the call pertained to, I might follow up on a call only once to see if someone obtained a warrant for someone's arrest. Other case may required more than one follow up. It's case specific and they're all unique in their own way. As a general rule though, I seldom have to follow up on a case more than once or twice.