Criminal Investigation of a Home Invasion
A home invasion burglary has been reported to you in which a juvenile female was raped. The victim has been taken to the hospital. The suspect was caught running from the scene and attempting to get into his car. A running computer and drugs are visible on the front seat of the car. There are four (4) important actions you must take; discuss each of these fully, including how the actions should be taken, their importance, and the consequences of not taking the actions.
Answer
The four important actions are undertaken to investigate sexual assault, computer crime, burglary, and drug-related crimes. Each of the actions is taken independently, while some of them may be taken jointly as they serve more than one purpose.
The first action is to investigate the sexual assault of the victim. The significance of this action is to look after and support them, carry out the actual investigation, and later collect and conserve evidence that will help in the prosecution of the assailant. The action starts by first giving the victim medical attention and since that has been done. The second step is documenting the evidence obtained from the victim’s body. The doctor needs to have a report of any abrasions, bruising, or any other injuries to the victims also any trauma to the penal, anal, or vaginal region. The doctors can collect hairs, vaginal fluid, blood, semen and trace evidence. From the collected evidence, one then can be able to establish if indeed the rape did take place, the other step under this action is taking the victim through various counseling sessions to enable her to heal from the psychological and physical trauma she might have developed. The importance of this action is to assist the victim get healed and also have justice served to her and only through this, will she be able to carry on her life properly thereafter. If this action is omitted, the victim can go into depression and also her health status changed forever for example contracting the HIV/AIDS virus (Chancellor, 2011).
The second action is investigating that the attack would have been also a computer crime, the action is very significant as it helps determine if the perpetrator ought to receive additional charges apart from the primary ones stated. The action starts by first establishing the internet protocol IP address of the computer in the Perpetrator’s car. The IP address is a series of numbers and letters and is attached to each and every piece of data roaming on the internet. The officers can have this done by internet service providers such as Big dot-com companies. The establishment of this address helps determine the contacts made by the perpetrator and point out if he was acting on any orders if there is a chain of other persons involved. If by any case the computer crashes, the officers can take it to data recovery companies from where data can be traced. The importance of the action is to establish the origin of how the crime might have been organized and if there are other persons involved. If this action is not taken, the whole process can miss crucial data that would have been used to build the case.
The third action is investigating the burglary. Burglary is defined as a home invasion or the unlawful entry into another person’s premises with the intention to commit a felony. The action starts by approaching the scene whereby the crime officers make their way to the premises where they got a distress call, the second step involves securing the scene aiming at making sure as much evidence is collected from the scene as possible. The victim and other members are instructed not to disturb anything. The importance of this is to make it easier for the officers to locate evidence and if possible the patterns. If securing the scene is not undertaken the evidence may be eloded by cleaning or trying to return furniture and other items to their original setting (Clarke, 2007).
The officers then continue to interview the victims of any people who may have visited him before and he/she can take officers through the promises and point out if any item has been moved from the original place. The last step under this action involves looking for evidence, as per the rule of thumb the best evidence is found where the level of activity is greatest, this consists of the point of entry to the premises; gate, door, and or window and also looking out for the disturbed or missing items. The various types of evidence include fingerprints and footwear impressions. The importance of this action is to find the evidence for persecuting the perpetrator and if this action is not undertaken, then burglary judges against him or her may be dropped merely based on no evidence.
The fourth action is investigating invasion as a drug-related crime; it has been mentioned that there were drugs in the perpetrator’s car therefore creating a possibility that he was a drug dealer. The sample from the drugs should be sent for laboratory testing to test what kind of drug is it and its possible effects on the user. The victim’s blood is also tested to ascertain if indeed he was using it or if he was under the influence. The whole process is meant to determine if the victim would have been influenced in any way by the drugs into acting. The pathologists can be able to tell even the period for which the assailant has been using the drug. If this action is omitted and later discovered that the perpetrator was under the influence of drugs, he would be granted some pardon on the basis that he was not in the right frame of mind when committing the offense.
