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The system in England and Wales involves a joint agency response to the sudden and unexpected death of a child (SUDC) and, for various reasons, the police contribution to that investigation is sometimes inadequate. The purpose of this paper is to explore some of the dilemmas which explain this inadequacy.

The arguments presented in the paper are made on the basis of empirically derived findings, drawing from original research based upon qualitative interviews with nine senior detectives working in the areas of child abuse or major crime, as well as focus groups of senior detectives, and a limited contribution from pathologists.

This paper explores whether there is an investigative deficit in respect of potential child homicide when compared to an adult domestic homicide, and it concludes that in some areas the most vulnerable people in society may be at risk because of issues such as inadequate training, inflexible force policies and under-resourced police investigation of child death.

It is possible to kill a child and leave few, if any, physical clues on the body. To determine if homicide is the cause of death, the overall police investigation therefore has to be of high quality to identify any clues that have been left by the perpetrator at the scene or in other ways. It is usual for Child Abuse Investigation Unit detectives to investigate SUDC but they are often trying to do so with little training and few resources. Cuts to police service budgets since 2010 have affected all elements of policing, including Major Crime Teams. As a result, these teams are more discerning about which cases they take on and there is evidence they are not taking on child death investigations even if there are suspicions of homicide. The findings reveal important implications for police investigative training and a clear and significant deficit in the investigative resources available to the lead investigator on a SUDC investigation which may or may not be a homicide, compared with the resources available to the senior investigating officer on a straightforward domestic homicide when the victim is an adult. If homicide is missed, then siblings or future siblings with that family may be left at risk of harm. The College of Policing suggested standards for SUDC investigation are sometimes not being adhered to in respect of training and resources.

The paper is informed by original qualitative research conducted in 2019. The findings are of value to police policy makers, the College of Policing, and police senior leadership teams.

The purpose of this paper is to report the findings of an analysis of official data on police misconduct, providing new insights into the nature and extent of police misconduct and in the official response to police misconduct. Next to the use of force and neglect of duty, private time misconduct is a major type of (alleged) misconduct although it is often discarded from theoretical conceptions of police misconduct. The analysis also showed that two‐thirds of internal investigations are the result of an internal report. This paper shows that official data on police misconduct can result in new insights in the nature and extent of police misconduct and is therefore a relevant source for academic analysis.

An analysis of official data on police misconduct is compared with theoretical notions of police misconduct, internal investigations and reliability of official data.

The implementation of a uniform Registration of Internal Investigations for all Dutch police forces has resulted in a clear increase in the number of registered investigations. This seems to be due to a combination of increased strictness on (alleged) misconduct and an improved quality of the registration. The analysis also showed that two‐thirds of the investigations are the result of an internal report. This places a new perspective on the so‐called code of silence among police officers. However, information on the extent and nature of complaints that are dealt with through the complaints procedure is lacking. The complaints procedure has also no formal relation with the disciplinary or criminal procedures.

Official data on police misconduct have to be viewed with a critical eye. The analyses showed however that the Dutch data seem fairly reliable. Additional research should place the official data in further perspective, e.g. through case studies and through a control of the registration with the files of the Bureaux of Internal Investigations. Finally, a comparison with official data in other countries is needed.

The Dutch police should improve its complaints procedures and the complaints registration.

Academic analysis of police misconduct is often limited to case studies of scandals or focuses on citizen complaints. The paper gives a broader perspective by using official data.

The paper aims to argue that leadership by police managers is needed to stimulate and encourage knowledge sharing in police investigations, and to report an empirical study of what management roles are most important in investigations.

A research model was designed based on six management roles and a set of hypothesized relationships. A survey measuring management roles and knowledge sharing attitude was conducted in Norway. Respondents were senior investigation officers.

Only one management role was found to be a significant determinant of knowledge sharing in police investigations based on the sample used in this survey research within the Norwegian police force: the spokesman role was the only significant role. As a spokesman, the senior investigation officer extends organizational contacts to promote acceptance of the unit and the unit's work within the organization of which they are a part.

The low response rate of 20 percent may make it difficult to draw strong conclusions. Unfortunately, the authors have no information about what kinds of non‐response bias might be present (significant variation between the sample and the population). Future research should be more consistent in identifying the population.

While police investigations (of organized crime, trafficking, narcotics, economic crimes, homicide, etc.) need a stimulating internal structure for knowledge sharing, investigations depend on knowledge sharing with relevant persons and departments outside the unit as well to succeed.

Rather than stressing the importance of leadership in general to stimulate knowledge management, this paper is original as it applies a set of management roles to empirically study where leadership makes a difference for knowledge sharing attitudes.

This paper aims to analyse the extent to which the financial investigation function of an intergovernmental organisation (IGO) may be considered in policing terms, with a view to categorising it in relation to existing paradigms, while acknowledging the IGO’s unique context, in which it enjoys autonomy through various privileges and immunities.

This paper describes and analyses the internal investigation function of IGOs, drawing on practitioner experience as well as mandates, resolutions and reviews from the intergovernmental sector, before making comparisons with policing typologies.

Notwithstanding their expansion into inquiries of non-financial misconduct, IGO investigation offices are the primary means of addressing financial wrongdoing affecting their organisations. Comparisons are drawn with both the corporate policing role inherent in other employment-based organisations and with public policing as a function of the state. It is found that these two paradigms are insufficient to categorise policing within the unique context of the IGO, which has hybrid features of both.

In comparing IGO investigation alongside existing policing paradigms, this paper lays a foundation for further research into the accountability models applicable to this policing function.

This paper discusses the emergence of a form of policing with hybrid features of both internal corporate policing and state law enforcement and contributes to a field that is largely unaddressed in existing research.

This paper aims to examine the influence of police cultural knowledge on the investigation of violent serial crimes. Specifically, it aims to identify whether such knowledge impacts the way in which investigative techniques are implemented. Of particular interest is the police knowledge specific to victims of violent serial crimes.

A case study analysis of five incidents of serial murder and four incidents of serial rape in Australia was conducted. This included a qualitative analysis of cold case files from New South Wales Police, Australia. These data were triangulated with data obtained from interviews with detectives who had investigated incidents of serial murder and serial rape from that agency.

The police cultural knowledge relating to the victims of these crimes at the time of reporting negatively impacted the subsequent investigation of these cases. This resulted in a marked delay in the recognition of cases as part of a series of crimes and a delay in the allocation of investigative resources. This knowledge was informed by police experience in street policing, not from experience in the investigation of violent serial crimes.

This paper is limited to selected cases of serial crimes that occurred in Australia.

This research suggests that police cultural understandings of victims need to be reviewed and changed to include knowledge of serial crime victims, offenders and their crimes. Such changes could contribute to improved recognition of related crimes as being serial in nature, essentially opening the way to preventing further victimisation.

There is no research that considers the impact of police cultural knowledge on the investigation of violent serial crime, and its subsequent contribution to the length of time of the series of crimes remains unconnected.

This paper aims to present the application of situation calculus for knowledge representation in missing persons investigations.

The development of a knowledge representation model for the missing persons investigation process based upon situation calculus, with a demonstration of the use of the model for a missing persons example case.

Situation calculus is valuable for knowledge representation for missing persons investigations, as such investigations have state changes over time, and due to the complexity of the differing investigation activities applicable to different situations, can be difficult to represent using simpler approaches such as tables or flowcharts.

Situation calculus modelling for missing persons investigations adds formalism to the process beyond that which can be afforded by the current use of text, tables or flowcharts. The additional formalism is useful in dealing with the uncertainty present in such investigations.

The implications are a simplification of the application of the current police guidelines, and thoroughness in the application of such guidelines for missing persons investigations via situation calculus modelling.

This paper supports the management of missing person investigations, by using the most critical variables in a missing persons investigation to determine relevant investigation and search activities applicable to the circumstances of a given case.

The novelty of the knowledge representation approach is the application of situation calculus via state and action vectors and a matrix of fluents to the process of missing persons investigations.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the value shop configuration in police service for a criminal case.

An evaluation of a criminal case is presented.

It took Norwegian police 32 years to capture the Pocket Man who was responsible for more than 100 sexual abuses of boys over that same time period. Primary activities in the value shop applied to the case are: problem definition; investigation steps; investigation approach decision; investigation implementation; and police performance evaluation.

Based on an actual crime case, value configuration analysis demonstrates substantial potential in future policings.

This paper has been developed from discussions between the police and adult social care staff in adult protection training on joint investigations for managers and practitioners in Somerset. The role of the police in criminal investigations is examined and reviewed in the context of wider adult protection investigations. The case studies and discussion points are based on experience from adult protection investigations conducted by the East Somerset Public Protection Unit, and are used to identify key considerations for the effective planning, conduct and co‐ordination of adult protection investigations.

Drawing on the literature from the field and the recent experience of an evaluation into a child abuse investigation in Scotland, the purpose of this paper is to argue that evidence from the literature suggests that a more holistic approach drawing on the ideas of communities of practice could improve the way in which child abuse investigations are conducted.

This paper has been informed by a recent evaluation of a new national unit that was set up to investigate suspected child abuse in Scotland. This unit was established as part of the transition from eight regional police services in Scotland to a single national police service, Police Scotland. An important part of this evaluation was to consider the messages from previous research into the development of national police units and the role of the police in child protection investigations more generally.

What was uncovered were the challenges that police officers face in the current context of child abuse investigation particularly around construction of child abuse investigations, collaborative working, staff well-being and training.

The practical implications of this paper are as follows: police investigations into child abuse experience a range of issues, multi-agency and holistic approaches are more effective, agencies should be encouraged to establish communities of practice and staff need adequate levels of support and training.

This paper contributes towards a growing body of work examining the way in which child abuse investigations are conducted by police and the importance of inter-agency collaboration to support this. It contributes to academic debates and knowledge of the overall investigation process where, to date, there has been a paucity of literature and research that has tended to focus on evidence and experiences and to a boarder literature recognising the need for holistic approaches to tackle child abuse.

In-depth knowledge about specific national approaches to using digital evidence in investigations is scarce. A clearer insight into the organisational barriers and professional challenges experienced, alongside a more detailed picture of how digital evidence can help police investigations are required to empirically substantiate claims about how digital technologies are changing the face of criminal investigations. The paper aims to focus on the introduction of digital media investigators to support investigating officers with the collection and interpretation of digital evidence.

Drawing on ethnographic and interview data collected as part of an Economic and Social Research Council-funded project on the application of digital forensics expertise in policing in England and Wales, this paper examines the changing face of investigations in relation to escalating digital demand.

The analysis presents the national and regional organisational parameters of deploying digital expertise in criminal investigation and examines some of the challenges of being a digital media investigator (DMI). Through testimonies from DMIs, digital forensic practitioners, investigating and senior officers and forensic managers, the analysis explores the organisational tensions in the collection, processing, interpretation and use of information from digital devices for evidential purposes.

The paper offers an empirical basis for the comparative study of how the DMI role has been implemented by law enforcement agencies and its fit within broader institutional considerations and processes.

The development of the DMI role has raised questions about the supply of digital expertise, especially to volume crime investigations, and tensions around occupational divisions between scientific and operational units.

The findings show that while the introduction of the DMI role was much needed, the development of this valuable provision within each force and the resources available require sustained and coordinated support to protect these professionals and retain their skills.

This study contributes to the growing sociological and criminological literature with an ethnographically based perspective into the organisational and occupational tensions in the identification and processing of digital evidence in England and Wales.