The Stages of a Criminal Investigation

The stages in a criminal investigation are:

• The Initial Response to a Reported Crime
• Preliminary Investigation
• The Investigation Plan
• Follow up Investigations
• Incident Room
• Investigating Leads 
• Researching and Analysing Intelligence Systems
• Gathering and Analysing Facts
• Identifying Patterns and Links 
• Process of Elimination
• Ethical Considerations
• Report Writing and Presentation of Evidence in Court

Each of these Stages of the investigation is ordered to attempt to make the case as strong and reliable as possible and so that the police can gather as much evidence as they can about the crime which has occurred. When each of these stages is completed properly with appropriate and practiced police and forensic methods, it enables the police to build a sound, reliable case which can lead to a successful conviction of a perpetrator. However in some cases these stages are not carried out properly, and mistakes are made. This can lead to the wrongful conviction of an innocent person or even the acquittal of a guilty person. Within these blog posts the stages of an investigation will be described in the way that they should have been carried out in order to build a sound case. The stages will then be linked to the Case of OJ Simpson and what happened within this case at each stage will be described.

As OJ Simpson was acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman, the stages will include an analysis of why this may have occurred.