“Mosaicking”: cross construction, sense-making and methods of police investigation
Policing: An International Journal
ISSN: 1363-951X
Article publication date: 6 April 2021
Issue publication date: 31 August 2021
Abstract
Purpose
This article explores how homicide detectives make sense of and manipulate multiple physical, digital and informational artefacts when assembling case narratives. The authors introduce the concept of mosaicking to illuminate how different modes of information, deriving from different investigative methods, are used in concert at key moments of the investigative process – defining what type of crime has occurred; the incrimination and elimination of suspects; and decisions to charge key suspects.
Design/methodology/approach
The data qualitatively analysed include several hundred case papers, interview transcripts (n = 144) and detailed ethnographic fieldnotes relating to 44 homicide investigations across four police services. These were collected during a four-year ethnographic study of the use of forensic sciences and technologies (FSTs) in British homicide investigations.
Findings
Mosaicking describes how investigators blend and combine information, intelligence and evidence generated via different techniques and methods, to make sense of “who did what to whom and why?” Through processes of convergent and divergent mosaicking, detectives are able to “lean” on different kinds of material to reinforce or connect key points of evidence or intelligence.
Originality/value
The findings fill a gap in knowledge about how investigators blend and composite diverse sources of information in the construction of case narratives. The findings present a more complex and nuanced understanding of the epistemological and interpretative work conducted by contemporary detectives, given the array of investigative technologies they increasingly have at their disposal.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This paper is based upon ethnographic research undertaken by Brookman and Jones as part of the Homicide Investigation and Forensic Science Project (HIFS) funded by the Leverhulme Trust. Both now retired, Professor Robin Williams (Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, Northumbria University) and Professor Jim Fraser (Centre for Forensic Science, University of Strathclyde) were co-investigators. The authors wish to thank the Trust for the opportunity to undertake this research. The authors extend their gratitude to all of the detectives; police staff; forensic scientists; crime scene managers and coordinators; forensic submissions and budget managers; prosecutors; judges; and other specialists within and beyond the criminal justice system who kindly gave up their time to take part in the research.
Funding: This work was supported by the Leverhulme Trust [grant number RPG-2014-143].
Citation
Innes, M., Brookman, F. and Jones, H. (2021), "“Mosaicking”: cross construction, sense-making and methods of police investigation", Policing: An International Journal, Vol. 44 No. 4, pp. 708-721. https://doi.org/10.1108/PIJPSM-02-2021-0028
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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