The Complete Idiot's Guide to Criminal Investigation

by Axelrod, Ph.D., Alan; Antinozzi, J.D., Guy

• ISBN13: 9780028643465
• ISBN10: 0028643461
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-07-01
• Publisher: DK Publishing, Inc.

Summary

Since the O. J. Simpson murder case in the mid-1990s and the many instances of DNA evidence ultimately releasing people convicted unjustly of crimes, there has been a fascination with not only "true crime" per se but many other aspects of criminal investigation--processing crime scenes, fingerprints, blood spatters, expert witnesses--and the list goes on. The Complete Idiot's Guide® to Criminal Investigation is the perfect entry point for anyone who has ever been fascinated by crime, criminals, and the ways they are investigated and studied. The book has the benefit of both a terrific writer and an expert who can offer wonderful insights into criminal investigation from his many years as a professional. And because the book covers methods of investigation other than the forensic sciences, it gives a better-rounded picture of the subject than competing titles.

Author Biography

Alan Axelrod has written widely in the areas of trade reference, popular history, biography, and business. He has served as consultant to numerous museums and cultural institutions, television documentaries, and is a historical consultant for the Discovery Channel Guy Antinozzi is a practicing law enforcement professional. Trained as a lawyer, he is a special investigator in the Solicitor General's Office of Dekalb County in metro Atlanta. His office processes about 16,000 investigations every year. A veteran police officer and criminal investigator, he also teaches in the field

Table of Contents

Overview and Long View	p. 1
Right and Wrong and Cops and Robbers	p. 3
Everyone's Got a Theory	p. 4
Order and Law	p. 6
When It Comes to Crime, Everything's Relative	p. 8
The Professor and the Cop	p. 11
Sleuths and Scientists	p. 12
Get Real: The Truth About Criminal Investigation	p. 14
Criminology Classic	p. 17
Criminological Prehistory	p. 18
Hail, Cesare!	p. 22
Bentham's Head	p. 25
Classical Criminology Distilled	p. 26
A Flawed but Persistent View	p. 27
And Now for Something Completely Different	p. 28
Power of Positive Thinking	p. 33
Lombroso: The "Father" of Criminology	p. 34
The Two Strands of Positivist Criminology	p. 36
Positivist Criminology Distilled	p. 39
Positivist Criminology Today	p. 40
Positivism: Problems and Pluses	p. 43
Strain Theory	p. 47
The Focus Shifts	p. 48
Strain Theory Distilled	p. 50
Modern Problems	p. 52
Crime in the "Age of Anxiety"	p. 54
Crime and Prosperity: Robert K. Merton's "Dream Machine"	p. 54
Strained to the Limit?	p. 56
In Theory	p. 59
Current Criminology: Some Leading Perspectives	p. 61
Strain Theory Today	p. 62
Labeling: Crime as a Social Process	p. 65
Crime as Class Warfare	p. 67
Feminist Criminology	p. 70
Current Criminology: Right and Left	p. 75
Contemporary Criminology Under Indictment	p. 76
Realists from the Left	p. 78
Restorative Justice	p. 80
Cutting Edge: Critical Criminology	p. 82
The Usual Suspects	p. 87
Crimes to Order	p. 89
Classifying Crime	p. 90
Crimes Against Persons	p. 93
Crimes Against Property	p. 95
The Drug Cycle	p. 96
White-Collar Crime	p. 98
Victimology	p. 98
Profiling the Bad Guys	p. 101
Criminal Profiling: Fact vs. Fiction	p. 102
A Short History of Criminal Profiling	p. 103
FBI Crime Scene Analysis	p. 108
Investigative Psychology: The Canter Approach	p. 110
Behavioral Evidence Analysis: The Turvey Approach	p. 111
Profiling Scorecard	p. 113
On the Scene (and in the Lab)	p. 115
The Arrival	p. 117
Who's on Call	p. 118
Pitfalls	p. 125
Bringing Method to the Madness	p. 129
Recording the Scene	p. 130
Taking Note	p. 132
Asking Questions	p. 133
Search Me	p. 136
Special Searches	p. 138
Gathering the Evidence	p. 141
An Investigator's Toolkit	p. 142
What Is Evidence, Anyway?	p. 145
An Unbroken Chain	p. 150
The Fingerprint Story	p. 155
Early Criminal Identification	p. 156
The "Father of Scientific Detection"	p. 157
Fingerprinting: A Short History	p. 159
Finding the Prints	p. 162
Loops to Whorls: The Classification of Fingerprints	p. 164
AFIS: Automated Fingerprint Identification System	p. 166
What About DNA "Fingerprinting"?	p. 167
Crime Lab	p. 169
Forensics: What It Is	p. 170
Work of the Modern Crime Lab	p. 171
Areas of Special Expertise	p. 180
The Body in Question	p. 185
House Call	p. 187
The Crime Scene	p. 188
Checklist: Gathering Information	p. 189
A Step Back	p. 192
Reading the Wounds	p. 194
Body of Evidence	p. 197
Meet the ME	p. 198
Dead Men and the Tales They Tell	p. 198
Death: How?	p. 200
Death: When?	p. 203
Death by Poisoning: Forensic Toxicology	p. 205
Identification	p. 205
DNA Evidence: The "Smoking Gun"?	p. 209
The Double Helix	p. 210
Step by Step	p. 212
Playing the Numbers and Making the ID	p. 215
DNA Evidence in the Courts	p. 216
The Future of DNA Identification	p. 217
The Long Arm	p. 219
Policing: The Way It Was	p. 221
The First Cops	p. 221
Case Study: London	p. 223
Policing for a New Century, 1900	p. 229
Policing America	p. 233
New York City Before 1895	p. 234
Enter Commissioner Roosevelt	p. 237
A Nation of Immigrants	p. 239
A Nation of Lawbreakers	p. 240
The Evolution of the FBI	p. 241
Policing: The Way It Is	p. 245
To Serve and to Protect	p. 246
Old Dangers, New Pressures	p. 250
Police Academy: The Latest Sequel	p. 253
Deadly Force and Gentle Persuasion	p. 255
The Ultimate Weapon: Information	p. 259
Sources of Information	p. 260
The Information File	p. 263
The Rat--a Necessary Evil	p. 264
Police Networking	p. 265
Lie Detectors	p. 269
The Polygraph	p. 270
A Short History of the Lie Detector	p. 273
The Polygraph in Action	p. 276
What Can Go Wrong?	p. 277
Inadmissible? The Courts and the Polygraph	p. 278
Alternatives to the Polygraph	p. 279
Beyond the Fringe	p. 283
"Truth Serum"	p. 284
You Are Getting Sleepy	p. 286
Psychic Hotline	p. 290
Intuition on Steroids	p. 292
Crime in a Crystal Ball	p. 295
Future Crime	p. 297
Based on Current Statistics	p. 298
Economy and Opportunity	p. 300
The Drug Scene	p. 301
Techno Crime	p. 303
Cyber Crime	p. 305
The New Counterfeiters	p. 307
Future Cops	p. 309
New Technologies and Traditional Values	p. 310
Security Horizons	p. 313
Emphasis on Information	p. 314
The Arsenal of the Future	p. 318
Policing for the People	p. 320
Appendixes
Who's Who in Criminology and Criminal Investigation	p. 323
Milestones in Crime and Crime Fighting	p. 331
The "Ten Code"	p. 337
Further Reading and Favorite Websites	p. 341
Index	p. 347
Table of Contents provided by Syndetics. All Rights Reserved.