Topic 4: Utilizing the STAIR Tool to Work Through the Investigative Process
At this point in our study of the investigative process, it is necessary to examine a structured process for strategic investigative response. To illustrate a system for strategic investigative response that can assist an investigator in thinking through the investigative process, we will use a model called the STAIR tool. Organized thinking and the ability to articulate a structured response cannot flow from a disorganized process. Through experience over time, most police investigators learn to structure their thinking, their investigative process, and their response priorities.
Each investigator learns to build one’s own mental road map.
The methods and mental mapping of the STAIR tool illustrated here are not an attempt to change the current reality of investigative thinking, it is merely the model of a process to illustrate the thinking used by many investigators. A new investigator can use this tool to start structuring and developing an investigative thinking processes.
Every day, operational police officers are tasked to respond to incidents in a never ending variety of scenarios.
Arriving at the scene of an incident, the police investigator is usually at the disadvantage of not knowing many of the facts. The investigator is challenged to gather the available information and analyze what is relevant with a goal of responding quickly, effectively, and appropriately. An effective and appropriate response is a response where the investigator has made decisions according to a predetermined set of priorities. For the investigator, these priorities and the desired results should always be protecting the life and safety of persons, protecting property, gathering and preserving evidence, accurately documenting the event, and establishing reasonable grounds to identify and arrest offenders. With these results in mind, we can start by remembering that in every reported incident, a police investigator is met with a situation Situation that must be resolved. With this situation understood immediate Tasks must then be undertaken to protect life and safety, gather relevant information, preserve evidence, and identify offenders. Lastly, in every situation, the information discovered must be Analyzed to inform and guide the Investigation that must happen to reach the desired Results.
To become more self-aware, an investigator might imagine oneself working through this process and creating a mental map of the road to be traveled for each investigation. This mental map can later be articulated, describing one’s thinking process and responses, observing the law as rules of the road, describing landmarks of evidence, navigating curves in the fact patterns, backing out of the dead ends of false leads, and validating the evidence discovered that led to a final destination. Ideally, that destination is the positive identification of a suspect and sufficient evidence to make an arrest and provide the court with proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
Later, when preparing notes, reports, court briefs, and testifying in court, the investigator will be able to recall their mental map and articulate their decision-making process to form the necessary reasonable grounds for belief to take action. If the crime remains unsolved and the investigation concludes as a cold case, the notes and reports describing the mental road map of the investigation remain on file for the next investigator who will be able to gain a clear picture of the investigation to date.
SSITUATION:ITUATION: achieving a big picture view of the event to classify and prioritize a responseachieving a big picture view of the event to classify and prioritize a response
• Break out the known facts of the event
• Offence classification – active event or inactive event
• Identify all the players – victims, witnesses, and suspects
• Offence recognition – identify the possible offence or offences being encountered
TTASKS:ASKS: focus on the results and the priorities of those results based on event statusfocus on the results and the priorities of those results based on event status
• Tactical investigative response on active event – Level 1: resolve life and safety issues
• Strategic investigative response on inactive event – Level 2: priorities engaged
• Crime scene management – evidence identification, evidence preservation, and evidence collection
• Canvassing for witnesses – witness interviewing
• Profiling the players – use all police data base information – CPIC, PRIME, PROS
• Document the event – notes, reports, photographs, diagrams, videos
AANALYSIS:NALYSIS: examiningexamining the reported facts, the observed facts, and the physical evidencethe reported facts, the observed facts, and the physical evidence
• Make observations and connections between people and circumstances
• Enhance the meaning of physical evidence by forensic analysis
• Determine evidence of motive, opportunity, and means to commit the offence
• Create timelines of activities
• Develop assumptions and theories that will guide the investigative process
• Develop investigative plans based on theories
• Authentication of the event – did it occur at the time, at the place, and in the manner being reported, or is the report a fabrication?
IINVESTIGATION:NVESTIGATION: validating the facts through corroboration of witness accounts and evidencevalidating the facts through corroboration of witness accounts and evidence
• Prioritize the best investigative plans based on most likely theory
• Test theories against information and evidence discovered through investigation to identify suspects and form reasonable grounds
• Return to analysis to form new theories or modify theories as new facts are found
RRESULTS:ESULTS: prioritizing and focussing on the results to guide the investigative processprioritizing and focussing on the results to guide the investigative process
• Protection of the lives and safety of people
• Protection of property
• Gathering and preserving evidence
• Accurately documenting the event
• Establish reasonable grounds to identify and arrest suspects
Please note: The STAIR investigation tool as developed and depicted in this book is based on the author’s conceptual modification of the STAR technique which is commonly used as a tool for behavioural interviewing.
Summary Summary
In this chapter, we have focussed on the strategic investigative process and described the STAIR tool as a means of illustrating and working through the investigative process. This is a process that can be likened to climbing a set of stairs, whereby getting to the top (Results) requires taking one step at a time from the bottom (the Situation).
The second step (Tasks) then leads to a third step (Analysis) and the fourth step (Investigation). At this point, the investigator can expect to take a step back more than once to do further Analysis. In any case, the goal is always to get to the top of the stairs. Skipping any of these steps will likely lead an investigator to miss an important part of the process.
As with the preceding chapters, the intent here is simply to assist you in defining and visualizing the investigative process. This delineation should help you to conceptualize investigation as a structured process. This is a process consisting of practices of information and evidence collection, analysis, theory development, and investigative planning, pointing toward achieving consistent outcomes. In the chapters that follow, you will be challenged to apply this thinking in some scenario exercises.
Study Questions Study Questions
1. What are the three most common errors investigators make in applying the Strategic Investigative Response?
2. What five groups of tasks must an investigator follow through on to complete a thorough investigation?
3. What categories of tasks are involved in the Situation component of the STAIR tool?
4. What categories of tasks are involved in the Tasks component of the STAIR tool?
5. What categories of tasks are involved in the Analysis component of the STAIR tool?
6. What categories of tasks are involved in the Investigation component of the STAIR tool?
7. What categories of tasks are involved in the Results component of the STAIR tool?