Do not be armchair investigators - Criminal investigators urged
Personnel of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service have been urged to eschew armchair investigations in order to ensure successful criminal investigation of cases.
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The Director General of the CID, Commissioner of Police (COP) Prosper K. Agblor, who gave the advice, stated that CID personnel must visit all crime scenes to actively take part in the processing of the scene, collection and package of evidence in a proper and professional manner.
“You are expected to move into the field, meet witnesses to collect information and evidence instead of sitting and expecting information to be brought to you,” said Mr Agblor during the closing ceremony of a six-week training programme for 87 aides to CID personnel.
The aides are persons who have been recruited by the Ghana Police Service through the normal recruitment process but are attached to the plain clothed units at various police stations on probation.
Mr Agblor further tasked the criminal investigators to adopt more innovative and modern approaches to investigating cases.
He said with the completion of the six-week intensive training, the aides would soon be confirmed as detectives.
Areas of training
During the workshop, the aides were taken through basic investigative skills, interrogation and interview, indention methods, report writing and communication skills, arrest, detention and searching of a suspect, preparation of dockets, filling of CID forms, surveillance, human rights and crime scene management.
Mr Agblor said emerging frauds required a lot of efforts and skills to unravel and urged the yet-to-be-confirmed detectives to pay attention to them.
Some of the emerging frauds, he said, occurred mostly on online trading platforms where buyers were normally swindled.
He said the criminals had adopted sophisticated means of embarking on their activities and that required that criminal investigators should arm themselves with modern methods of crime detection.
Miscreant
Mr Agblor expressed concern over the increasing rate at which police personnel were being arrested for engaging in crime.
“It is worth noting that more and more men in uniform are being arrested for committing various crimes such as fraud, robbery, drug trafficking, stealing, rape,” he said.
He, therefore, warned all police personnel that the Police Administration would not shield any unscrupulous officer who engaged in criminal acts.
“The Police Administration is determined to prosecute such bad lots in our midst to serve as a deterrent to all like-minded officers. I urge all officers and men to lead exemplary lives and be of good behaviour. It is only by doing so that we can have the moral justification to work as law enforcement officers,” he said.
On behalf of the course participants, Inspector Mavis Kamassah said they had been exposed to new ways of investigations and had also built new networks to improve their work.