1.3: THE PATH TO BECOMING AN INVESTIGATOR

For many people, as relayed by Gehl & Plecas (2017) their idea of what an investigator does is based on what they see, hear, and read in the media, movies, TV, and books. These depictions characterize personas ranging from dysfunctional violent rebels fighting for justice by their own rules, to by-the-book forensic investigators who get the job done clinically using advanced science and technology. The truth is, good investigation and real-life investigators are unlikely to make a captivating fictional script. Professional investigators and competent investigations are about the tedious processes of fact-finding and sorting through evidence and information. It is about eliminating possibilities, validating events, and recording evidence, all the while engaging in an intentional process of thinking, analyzing, and strategically working towards predetermined goals; not to mention extensive note taking and report writing.

Sometimes, new police investigators are, at first, deluded by fictional representations, only to find out, by experience, that the real job, although having moments of action, satisfaction, and excitement, is more about hard work and deliberate attention to detail.

Another common misnomer about the job is the conception that investigation is the exclusive domain of a police officer. Although this may have been true in the earlier evolution of the investigative craft, it has become much less the case today. This change is a result of the enactment of many regulatory compliance statutes that require investigative knowledge, skills, and thinking. Compliance investigators maintain adherence to regulated activities which often involve legal compliance for industries where non-compliance can pose significant risks that threaten the lives and safety of people or the environment. These regulated activities are often responsibilities of the highest order. What starts as a regulatory violation can escalate into criminal conduct. The investigative skills of compliance investigators and inspectors must be capable of meeting the same tests of competency as the police.

Not just anyone can become an investigator. There are certain personal traits that tend to be found in good investigators. Among these traits are:

• Being passionate about following the facts to discover the truth, with a goal of contributing to the process of justice
• Being detail-oriented and observant of the facts and the timelines of events
• Being a flexible thinker, avoiding tunnel vision, and being capable of concurrently examining alternate theories while objectively using evidence as the measure to confirm or disconfirm validity of theories
• Being patient and capable of maintaining a long-term commitment to reaching a conclusion
• Being tenacious and not allowing setbacks and false leads to deter continued efforts
• Being knowledgeable and skilled at the tasks, process, and procedure while respecting legal authorities and the limitations to act
• Being self-aware of bias and intuitive responses, and seeking evidence to support gutfeelings
• Being trained in the processes of critical thinking that provide reliable analysis of evidence that can later be described and articulated in reports and court testimony

Considering this list of traits, we can appreciate that good investigators are people with particular attitudes, aptitudes, and intentional thinking processes. These traits all form part of the investigative mindset. Although you cannot teach someone to be passionate about discovering the truth, anyone who has these traits can work towards developing and refining their other traits and skills to become an investigator. Developing the mindset is a learning journey, and the first step of this journey is to become intentionally aware of and engaged in your own thinking processes (Gehl & Plecas, 2017).

Toward this point, the investigator must always be mindful of the proposition of Shah and Oppenheimer (2008) in their book Heuristics Made Easy: An Effort Reduction Framework. Shah and Opprenheimer remind us that people have learned to become quick thinkers using mental short cuts, known as heuristics, in an effort to make decisions quickly and problem solve the challenges we encounter. They offer the proposition that heuristics reduce work in decision making by giving the user the ability to scrutinize a few signals and/or alternative choices in decision-making, thus diminishing the work of retrieving and storing information in memory. This streamlines the decision-making process by reducing the amount of integrated information necessary in making the choice or passing judgment (Shah, 2008).

In this book, we will point out that these heuristic shortcuts are often instinctive or intuitive reactions, as opposed to well-reasoned, evidence-based responses. Although they may serve us well in our everyday thinking, they must be monitored and recognized for their short-falls when we are required to investigate matters where the outcomes are critical.

To achieve the investigative mindset and be an objective investigator, it is important to be aware of the heuristic shortcuts and other negative investigative tendencies that can become obstacles to successful outcomes. For example, a good investigator needs to be focused on the objective of solving the case and making an arrest in a timely manner, but becoming too focused can lead to “tunnel vision,” which is the single-minded focus on a favorite suspect or theory to the extent that other suspects or alternate theories are ignored. Moreover, a good investigator needs to take responsibility and be accountable for the outcomes of the investigation; however, taken to the extreme, this can lead to an investigator taking complete ownership of the investigation to the exclusion of allowing the ideas of others to provide guidance and influence. Finally, a good investigator needs to be careful about how much information is shared with others. However, excessive secrecy can inhibit information sharing with those who might contribute to the successful conclusion of the case.

Thinking as an objective investigator, it is often necessary to consider and evaluate several competing theories or possibilities of how a crime was committed and who the suspect may be. Often, new investigators, or those uninitiated to the objective mindset, will focus on a favorite theory of events or a favorite suspect, and rush to be first to reach the conclusion and to make the arrest. There is a trap in shortcuts and the focused rush to make a fast arrest. In this trap, other viable suspects and theories are too quickly ignored or discarded. This sometimes leads to investigations being derailed by “tunnel vision.” Worse yet, tunnel vision can lead to the misinterpretation of evidence, ultimately leading to charges against an innocent person, while the guilty remain undiscovered.

To summarize the observations made by Kim Rossmo (2009) in his book on criminal investigative failures, tunnel vision and lost objectivity have been part of the findings in many public inquiries. Commissioners at public inquiries have concluded that, at times, investigators relentlessly pursue a favorite suspect. Sometimes an alternate suspect should have been apparent, or exculpatory evidence was present that should have caused the investigators to stop and re-evaluate their favorite suspect, but tunnel vision had set in and the objective investigative mindset had been lost (Rossmo, 2009).

Similarly, and not totally unrelated to tunnel vision, other negative thinking responses also come into play, and can be observed in the behaviors of case ownership and excessive secrecy. It may seem that an investigator taking ownership for his or her investigation, and maintaining some degree of secrecy in the management of case related information, is completely acceptable and perhaps even desirable. However, as happens with any human behavior, it can negatively influence the outcome of investigations. Information appropriately shared with the right people can often reveal connections that contribute to the evidence of a case, and investigators must remain open to this appropriate sharing. Many negative examples can be found where a police investigator, or even an investigative team, adopted the attitude that the conduct of an investigation is their own exclusive domain (Campbell, 1996). With that exclusive ownership, no one else is entitled or allowed to participate, and relevant information that needs to be shared with others can be jealously guarded. Opportunities are missed for other investigators to see details that could connect a similar fact pattern or make the connection to a viable suspect.

Understanding the Investigative Mindset

When we talk about the investigative mindset, in part, we are talking about the self-awareness and the organizational-awareness to avoid negative outcomes. Once learned and practiced, this awareness can be a safety net against destructive investigative practices (i.e. tunnel vision, case ownership, and excessive secrecy). Criminal investigation can require complex thinking where the investigator must assess and determine the validity of information and evidence to guide the investigative process. This thinking strives to move from a position of mere suspicion to one of reasonable grounds for belief to make an arrest and ultimately articulate evidence upon which the court can make a finding of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. This is a conscious process of gathering and recording information, and thinking analytically to form reasonable grounds for belief supporting defendable actions of arrest and charges. From this conscious process, the investigator in court can articulate a mental map to describe how they derived their conclusions (Gehl & Plecas, 2017).

As we proceed towards learning the investigative thinking process, keep in mind that:

• Investigative thinking is disciplined thinking, and investigators must be consciously aware of and consciously in control of their own thinking
• This is a process of being intentionally engaged at a high level of analytical thinking
• This thinking process is strategically focused, prioritizing investigative plans and actions to achieve outcomes
• Developing a mental map, the investigator deliberately selects a path of the investigation will follow. He or she travels that path with the knowledge that the outcomes of the investigation will only be accepted by the court if the rationale for the path taken can be recalled accurately and articulated in detail