Giacalone’s “Criminal Investigative Function”

Giacalone’s “Criminal Investigative Function.” Joe Giacalone has delivered on a promise: plain English from front to back! The book is an excellent read as a whole but certainly offers the clarity to be read subject by subject.

Each chapter is tailored to handle a part of the criminal investigation. Each step within each chapter is clearly described by Giacalone with acronyms to help new investigators memorize the main elements and their order. For example “the investigator attempts to establish the elements of a suspect through the closest person in their lives: MOM (e.g. Means Opportunity Motive.)”

The book is a great source of information for students who are thinking about a career in law enforcement. Chapter 1 shows them the route to take with a reliable time line unlike those you see on television. Fresh out of the academy, they enter crime scenes or laboratories…really, that only happens on TV!

Giacalone not only wrote a book that takes you step by step through a criminal investigation, he provides diagrams, tip sheets, and each chapter ends with a list of questions that can be used as a study guide to repeat the chapter or, of course, to question your own knowledge. The accent is firmly on the investigation but the author never loses sight of procedure!

One point of criticism: in Chapter 6 entitled “Eyewitness Identification Procedures” Giacalone introduces the due process clause of the 14^th Amendment and writes “…nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” He then continues that this “is what protects the citizens of the United States from unfair police identification procedures that are too suggestive.” I wish that Giacalone had written “all people within American jurisdiction.”

Highly recommended reading!

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