LOSING THE DETECTIVES: VIEWS FROM THE ... - Police Federation

Grade A: a murder defined as ‘a major crime of grave public
concern’ where there is no obvious offender. This type of crime
would merit an initial maximum allocation of 38 officers.
Grade B: a murder where the offender was known but not yet
caught, or where the offender was in custody but there were
difficulties proving they had committed the crime or where it did not
generate a large degree of public feeling but still had to be cleared
up. This type of crime would merit an initial maximum allocation of
16 officers.
Grade C: a murder where the identity of the offender is apparent
on investigation – domestic murders etc. These would merit an
initial maximum allocation of 11 officers (Innes, op cit: 90).
Innes found that such classifications are interpreted flexibly in practice and the
deployment of MITs reflects this. As we noted earlier, when an MIT takes over the
responsibility for a murder enquiry it may require the assistance of members of GO
CID depending upon the ‘symbolic’ status of the murder and whether a suspect has
been identified. Innes again:
‘Certain murders are recognised by the police as generating “grave
public concern”, and as a reflection of this, additional resources are
made available in order to try and ensure that these strategically
important crimes are investigated successfully.' (Innes, op cit: 92).
And Stelfox noted:
'Where no suspect is revealed during the initial response . . . an
enquiry team of detectives [will be deployed] usually temporarily
abstracted from other CID duties from surrounding divisions.'
(Stelfox, op cit:29).
‘Investigation by negotiation’ applies to other types of incidents
In forces where the remit of MIT extended beyond murders there was often
confusion as to precisely what the remit was. For example one respondent in a
group would claim that an MIT had investigated a rape on his or her BCU and that,
therefore, rape fell within the MIT remit. Others in the group would contest this as
they had failed in the past to persuade their MIT to take responsibility for the
investigation of a rape. Yet others argued there was no clear policy as sometimes
their MIT would accept the investigation of a certain category of crime but then on
other occasions, refuse.
[Detective 1] I think the idea is, as well, that they’re going to deal
with stranger rapes and that kind of thing. They will often look to
see what we’ve got on in the morning and if there’s anything that
they sort of fancy dealing with they will take it. I don’t actually know
what the set procedure is for what they should do. I know obviously
murders, but do attempted murders and stranger rapes fall into their
territory? Does any suspicious death?
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