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Violent crime is a growing concern in our society: the number of reported cases of murder, arson, and sexual assault climbs steadily every year. At the same time, there has been a decrease in the number of these crimes solved - in the past thirty years there has been a 25 percent drop in the solution rate for homicide alone. Law enforcement officials feel mounting public pressure to apprehend perpetrators as quickly as possible, yet their efforts are hampered by poor communication between police departments, a lack of common terminology, and the increased mobility of criminals. Each police department has traditionally operated independently, using its own investigative techniques and its own language and definitions, with limited interdepartmental training.
The Crime Classification Manual is a diagnostic system that will standardize terminology and for the first time formally classify the critical characteristics of the perpetrators and victims of the three major violent crimes - murder, arson, and sexual assault. It is the result of nearly a decade of study of murderers, rapists, child molesters, abductors, and arsonists at the FBI's National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime in Quantico, Virginia. This new standard system will put into the hands of police officers - in any size community, in any size department - the same investigative techniques and definitions used by the FBI to coordinate their investigations and solve crimes.
The Crime Classification Manual identifies for investigators the clues and crime scene indicators common to each type of crime, so they can begin piecing together a solution and establishing a motive as soon as they arrive at the crime scene. Once a general idea of the perpetrator and the motive has been established, investigators can use the CCM to identify the other aspects common to that type of crime: victimology, modus operandi, physical evidence, the weapon, autopsy results, etc. What's more, the CCM offers invaluable how-to advice on such topics as staging and personation, crime scene photography and the analysis of crime scene photos, prescriptive interviewing, guidelines on the use of search warrants, and more. And its unique and useful numbering system can be easily adopted and implemented in police departments and bureaus nationwide.
The Pocket Guide to the Crime Classification Manual presents in handy outline form the data in the main volume and serves as a quick in-the-field reference tool for CCM users.
The Crime Classification Manual will serve as an indispensable manual for investigators, prosecutors, mental health professionals, criminal justice and correctional institution personnel, as well as criminologists, policymakers, and anyone else whose work brings them into contact with either the offender or victim of violent crime.
