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Meet Bob. He has filmed some thugs assaulting him by shoving, hitting, kicking at him and forcibly taking his phone away on the street until a passerby finally strongly urged him to give it back.
Bob reports this criminal assault to the police some months later while submitting his incontrovertible video evidence.
What factors would determine the degree of rigour with which the police look into a pursue this crime?
What factors would determine the degree of rigour with which the police look into a pursue this crime?
Among the factors would be:
The severity of the harm caused by the crime. Murders get investigated in circumstances when muggings causing no physical injury and no property loss do not. Someone who returns property taken is less of a priority than someone who breaks a victim's arm and steals their life savings. Also, lots of effort in investigating and prosecuting a crime might not be worth it if the likely sanction will be a modest fine and a period of supervision while remaining in the community.
The likelihood that the crime can be proved. Cold cases are always harder to prove. Cases with insufficient evidence to be likely to prove a case aren't worth the trouble. Cases with less credible witnesses are a lower priority. Cases with hard to identify suspects don't go far.
The situation of the prime suspect(s), if know. If the prime suspect is known to be in prison on another charge already, for example, the urgency of an investigation is less great.
How promptly the crime was reported. Delay in reporting shows a manifest lack of urgency on the part of the reporting party that makes them ask why they should rush when the victim didn't. It makes the case harder to prove. It makes finding the suspect harder. It could implicate a statute of limitations in some cases.
The extent to which the crime would address a larger pattern of conduct or larger criminal organization. A one-off crime not likely to recur is a lower priority since keeping the streets safe is a higher priority than complete justice in all incidents. But if there have been many similar incidents that were not prosecuted for lack of good evidence like video evidence, it might be more attractive to investigation and prosecute.
The existence of larger investigations unknown to the complaining person that a prosecution of this crime might interrupt. If the suspect is also part of a major cartel investigation that could be disrupted if the suspect knew he was "made" they police might refrain from prosecuting or investigating the incident.
How busy the police are at the time the complaint is made. The case might get more attention on a slow day than a busy one.
There are two related questions:
I cannot enumerate the multitude of factors that inform the police's investigative discretion, but this guide from the College of Policing is a good resource. At the initial stage, factors include: scene management, risk management, record keeping, community impact. The priorities are to: preserve life, preserve scenes, secure evidence, identify victims, and identify suspects. The initial investigation is aimed at dealing with the immediate needs of victims and witnesses and gathering enough information to allow an investigative evaluation.
Whether the investigation goes further depends on the circumstances of the crime, the material gathered so far, and resource requirements.
Eventually, the police will coordinate with Crown Prosecution Service to identify further investigative needs of the prosecution, if a charge has been laid or is being considered.
More specific steps are discussed here. Importantly:
Each force sets their own crime investigation standards, which are disseminated to staff. They should be interdependent with the national intelligence model, to ensure that they support the deployment of appropriate resources to areas of identified priority at the correct time.
Police officers exercise a high level of discretion when dealing with situations on the street. This is not directly overseen by sergeants and inspectors, and this makes the supervision of frontline officers challenging. Crime investigation standards are, therefore, useful to monitor and measure the performance of individual investigators and the quality of the investigation.
Here are two resources describing the charging decision:
The default is that in order to charge, prosecutors must be satified that there is sufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction and that there are no public interest factors tending against prosecution which outweigh factors in favour of prosecution.
But, there are a limited range of cases in which the seriousness or circumstances of a case justify making an immediate charging decision, even though there is insufficient evidence to meet the "realistic prospect of conviction" standard. In order to charge in these special circumstances, five conditions must be met. I will not describe these in detail, but there must reasonable grounds to suspect that the person has committed the offence (this is a lower standard than a "realistic prospect of conviction"), there must be further evidence forthcoming, the seriousness of the case justifies making an immediate decision, there are substantial grounds to object to bail, and it is in the public interest to charge.
Further, there is a lot of discretion for police or prosecutors to proceed with an out-of-court disposal where it is in the public interest and is an appropriate response.
