Cju 201 Unit 2 Discussion Board

Dana Whidden

CJUS201-1604A-04

Instructor Roger Bonner

Due Date: 10/16/2016

Unit 2 Discussion Board

        Working within law enforcement you will find report writing is a critical component of the job. A well-written report can ease the prosecution of a criminal and lead to a justified conviction. On the other hand, a poorly written report can cause doubt, confusion, and ultimately set a criminal free. There are literally countless elements that make up a good report, in this paper I will go over five elements I consider to be vital to the criminal justice process.

        The first element to a good report I believe to be language. A lot of police departments have their senior officers train new recruits in the way of report writing. The report writing of the past is vastly different from the way we do it now. They wrote in the third person as to seem more professional and to be viewed with more credibility (Hart, 2000). All this does is cause confusion to the reader. Do not use police lingo that the common person won’t understand, write your reports in a common tongue that the average citizen will comprehend. You have to remember that if your report is used in court, it may be read to the jury and that jury usually consists of average citizens.

         Secondly, I hold grammar in high regard for report writing. If any case you have written reports on goes to trial, and those reports are read aloud to a jury, having written those reports with good grammar will spare the court of confusion. Watch out for run-on sentences, be careful of synonyms, use correct punctuation and no abbreviations. When proof reading your report, if a sentence seems to long just ask yourself if two complete thoughts are stated and if there are, add a period and maybe rephrase it. Also, if at all possible, copy and paste your report into a Microsoft Word document and run a grammar check.

        The third element on my list for good report writing is establishing elements of the crime, honestly by now this should common sense within law enforcement. “It’s not about the big picture – it’s about the tiny details” (Chief Joel F. Shults, 2012). Every spec of the offence must be meticulously recorded leaving no room for doubt. Omitting the smallest detail from your report can give way for a defense attorney to have the entire case thrown out. Yes, it will be tedious describing every nook and cranny in your reports but it’s better to be safe than sorry.

        Fourth on my list, good field notes. Good field notes will enable you to remember more details when it comes time to write your report. While in the field and on a call, taking notes will be difficult. It’s too bad our hands can’t process information as quickly as our brain when evaluating a situation. Though our hands can’t keep up, our brain does processes everything, getting your brain to remember is the trick. Use a form of short-hand and key words to promote memory recall. I personally have an eidetic memory and can recall memories with such triggers as color, shape, sound, and smell. Just remember (if you can… jokes) field notes are your tool for getting curtail, “in the moment” details that will help you write a better report.