An Examination of Investigative Practices of Homicide Units in Florida

• Date: 01 May 2019
• Author: Richard Hough,Kimberly D. McCorkle,Sarah Harper
• DOI: 10.1177/1088767919828421
• Published date: 01 May 2019
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/1088767919828421

Homicide Studies

2019, Vol. 23(2) 175 –194

© 2019 SAGE Publications

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DOI: 10.1177/1088767919828421

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Article

An Examination of

Investigative Practices of

Homicide Units in Florida

Richard Hough1, Kimberly D. McCorkle1,

and Sarah Harper2

Abstract

The study examined Florida law enforcement agency homicide investigation practices

previously identified in the literature as best (or most frequent). Departments

handling at least 25 homicides per year and those that handle fewer were surveyed,

a comparison not previously examined. The agencies had similar clearance rates.

Smaller agencies and those handling fewer homicides tended to use an outside agency

for crime scene services, did not have a cold case function, were less likely to use

a computerized case management system, and did not view public cooperation as a

barrier to homicide investigations to the degree that larger agencies did.

Keywords

homicide, homicide investigation, clearance, computerized case management system

(CCMS)

Introduction

In the 1960s, homicide cases in the United States were cleared at a rate of around 90%.

By 2012, this rate had dropped to 62.5% (Federal Bureau of Investigation [FBI],

2013); in 2015, the rate fell again, to 61.5% (FBI, 2016). The percent cleared in 2016

was 59.4 (FBI, 2017), but had a slight increase to 61.6 in 2017. There has been contin-

ued interest by academics, and ongoing frustration by law enforcement officials, over

the stable but low clearance rate of homicide investigations. This has led to an increase

1University of West Florida, Pensacola, USA

2University of South Florida, Tampa, USA

Corresponding Author:

Richard Hough, Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of West Florida, 11000

University Parkway, 85-160, Pensacola, FL 332514, USA.

Email: rhough@uwf.edu

828421HSXXXX10.1177/1088767919828421Homicide StudiesHough et al.

research-article2019

176 Homicide Studies 23(2)

in the examination of which factors may be amenable to increased resources or

adjusted investigative approach by police.

Criminology broadly studies and seeks to explain crime. Criminal justice grew

out of criminology as a discipline more focused on the responses to crime, including

those of law enforcement organizations. Law enforcement agencies develop policies

and procedures covering most aspects of department operations (Eagly & Schwartz,

2018). This reality of government agencies is driven by the goals of efficiency,

effective work, reduced liability, efforts to earn public confidence, and for increas-

ing numbers of agencies, the adherence to the requirements of an accrediting body

(Albrecht, 2011). Most agencies would be assumed to have a policy and perhaps

operational procedures on the investigation of death cases; we did not find this to be

the case in this study. A policy should form the basis of a directed approach to major

crime investigations, though across the vast number of individual agencies, there is

little evidence of a continuous process approach to the management of cases (Braga,

Flynn, Kelling, & Cole, 2011). A dedicated policy addressing major case investiga-

tion or homicide is suggested by the literature on investigative practices as such

policies and procedures will have an impact on procedural “success” and often clear-

ing a case (see, for example, Carter & Carter, 2016). However, it is recognized that

various aspects of a case are not under the control of police investigators or amena-

ble to sound procedures (Wellford & Cronin, 2000).

Many aspects of case outcome involve the actions of police (Keel, Jarvis, &

Muirhead, 2009; Wellford & Cronin, 2000), and some may incorporate a blend of

police–community factors such as temporally and geographically vacillating sup-

port of law enforcement by different communities (Jarvis & Regoeczi, 2012). Some

of the changing landscape of homicide investigation involves the ongoing refine-

ment of intelligence-led policing and all that means for the gathering and use of data

(Carter, 2013). Some of this may be reflected in the examination of microlevel

aspects of crime events, such as individuals and specific locations, rather than groups

and neighborhoods; take, for example, the increasing number of agencies using

computerized case management systems (CCMSs), the attention to immediate and

ongoing supervisory monitoring of investigator progress, or how many and in what

ways investigators and other personnel are assigned to cases (Braga & Dusseault,

2018; Regoeczi, 2018).

Our study examined how many Florida agencies utilize what have come to be con-

sidered best practices in homicide investigation. Prior research has connected these

investigative practices to improved clearance rates and other outcomes (Keel et al.,

2009). A gap in the literature is that previous studies have only examined agencies

handling 24, 25 or more homicides annually (Carter & Carter, 2016; Keel, 2009). As

we examine contemporary investigative practices in a large state, we endeavor to add

to the literature and provide some measure of what the future of such investigations

hold. The comparatively unexamined small-agency experience is significant given

that the majority of the U.S. population live in jurisdictions policed by smaller law

enforcement agencies (Bureau of Justice Statistics [BJS], 2011). In addition, this study

aims to inform future approaches by identifying trends and comparing those to