As a security professional, it’s important that you be on friendly terms with local law enforcement. Why? When criminal situations arise, you’ll need them in a hurry. During a crisis, you want local law enforcement to not only know who you are, but how you operate, and where your key security concerns lay. Contact your liaison officer within the local police department and take him or her on a tour of your facilities. Exchange phone numbers or email addresses. Invite your liaison officer to stop by your office frequently, or ask him or her to speak at crime prevention luncheons and training sessions. You’ll find that these activities help the local police become comfortable with your organization and allow them to feel confident in approaching your staff.
In many burglary or office creeper cases, you may find that police detectives are overwhelmed by their workloads. Often, the police will not conduct a thorough investigation unless the crime is violent. YOU may end up doing the investigation, collecting the evidence, and presenting your findings to the police officers in order to help solve your cases. If you have done all this in a complete and well-documented manner, they’ll assist quickly in the arrest. We have had many office creeper incidents and burglaries in which I, as the CSO, did all of the investigation and evidence gathering. However, when the time came to make an arrest, I always contacted the police and coordinated with the detectives to arrange a safe and controlled off-site arrest. In one case, we were even able to crack a theft ring! As you can see, knowledge of the law combined with coordination and cooperation with local police really helps.
I have been employed in the field of forensics for over twenty-five years. When introduced to the field and opinion testimony, it was stressed to me during my training and subsequent contacts within the field that all scientists must not be biased while performing analyses or on the witness stand. As a forensic scientist, one is not working for the prosecution or the defense. His only obligation is to disclose the knowledge gained through his examinations.
During one of the last few episodes of one of the CSI programs this past season, the statement was made by one analyst to another “we will get him”. Even more appalling than this to me, I watched as a well known pathologist exited the courtroom after giving his testimony. He seemed to take more pleasure in front of the camera for the media than giving his opinion as to the findings in the case.
Analysts would like to be treated professionally by all parties. If one seeks the respect of individuals within his profession and those he testifies before, it goes a long way to treat them with the same respect you desire. This can be obtained by sharing your knowledge to both sides without any bias.
Over the past 18 months I have written a few articles on the pros and cons of Privatization of Prisons. It has, to say the least, become a very controversial topic both in the private sector as well as in the Department of Corrections. It has become apparent that the most difficult issue regarding privitization is the “legal authority” of the employees of a privately run prison to administer “punishment”.
The question that is at the center of this particular argument is: “Are the employees violating inmate’s constitutional rights and thus causing more petitions to be filed in court as a result of these violations”?
If the answer to this is yes, then the argument for prison privitization saying it saves tax payers money goes right out the window. A case in point is the recent riot at a Texas prison where some employees were taken hostage. After reading the incident linked here, how do you think the legal issues regarding inmates actions will be handled by the private prisons administration and do they have the right, under constitutional law, to administer any retributive consequences?
Betty Ray Mydland
Student
Ashworth College Criminal Justice Program
In civil litigation there is a statute of limitations that is established in each state that requires a lawsuit for damages to be filed within a specified period of time from the date of the event. The time period is two years in most states. I investigate a large number of cases where someone files a product liability lawsuit against an automobile manufacturer. If someone had an automobile accident on March 1, 2007, wherein they claim that the seat belt in their Corvette failed, and this resulted in their receiving an injury, they have until March 1, 2009 to file their suit against General Motors. The injured party may have hired an attorney within days or weeks of the accident, and the attorney with his investigators and experts would have conducted and completed their investigation and analysis of the subject Corvette within weeks or months from the date of the accident. When the lawsuit is filed in late February 2009, I will then have to go out to the accident scene and try to determine the events of the accident. After two years, any tire marks from the accident will likely have disappeared from the roadway.
I may have a very difficult time even locating the exact place where the accident occurred. When I go to interview witnesses, those individuals will have to try to recall events from two years past. It certainly puts the defendant in these cases at a distinct disadvantage.In consideration of all the information I provided you about the private investigator’s challenges at the crime scene, and the civil case involving the Corvette, does all this mean that the private investigator can’t function? Not at all. What it does mean is that the private investigator will have to be very, very smart. You will have to use your network of contacts to gather some information and you will have to be highly skilled at interviewing in order to either convince someone to talk to you, or to pull out of them all the small details that they can possibly recall about a specific event.
The challenge is one of the great attractions of this line of work to me. The ability of a private investigator to perform the investigation in the face of many obstacles is what makes a private investigator so vitally important. If you are going to be successful in this business, you need to get the mind set right now that will not allow you to say, “I can’t.” One of my favorite statements is “it is amazing what one can accomplish, when one doesn’t know what one can’t do.” If you start with this thought in mind, then even the daunting task of dealing with all the negative aspects of a criminal or civil investigation will be made easier.
You know we’ve broken new cultural ground when people are watching “live” burglaries for entertainment. I must admit that this video is strangely compelling…
Here’s an interesting case that should interest our Ashworth Criminal Justice Community. As forensic analysis technology continues to evolve, particularly in the area of DNA detection, we will hopefully see an exponential increase in the number of controversial cases that are reopened for investigation. However; since the investigative resources available to law enforcement agencies will likely remained strained, an unfortunate lag may exist between the availability of these advanced forensic technologies to law enforcement versus their ability to effectively integrate and apply them on a systematic scale.
I took the Intro To Terrorism course last year year. Assuming that the writing assignments have not changed since then, here are two links that will really help everone who takes this course with one of them:
I don’t know if we have any members of ASIS in any of Ashworth’s programs, but here is the website for Security Management magazine, which provides a lot of valuable information about the industry.
I just graduated from the A.S. in Security Management program last month. What I can tell you is that it is quite challenging and you will learn a great deal. If you’re already working in the Security industry; this will be a huge help to you within your organization.
You’ll get lots of great information in the Introduction to Security Management course and the textbook is fantastic (it’s also an approved textbook for the famous ASIS CPP certification exam prep).
Introduction to Terrorism has two challenging writing assignments; but I thought they were a lot of fun to work on and I enjoyed the chance to learn more about those topics.
I really disliked Social Problems and Criminal Behavior. The latter had the most difficult writing assignment of the entire program.
The Homeland Security course was interesting and gave me lots of useful knowledge and some new perspectives, but one of the textbooks in that course (there are two) was outdated, and didn’t take into account many of the changes we’ve seen since the start of the Iraq War in how we fight terrorism or certain Supreme Court decisions that forced the Bush Administration to alter its’ policies.
I had a terrific opportunity to run into two upbeat, interesting women who have the perfect jobs for paralegals seeking alternative careers. Now, hold your horses here because the first thing I’m going to tell you is that they are located in, well, Fargo, North Dakota. Yep. Unless you’ve seen the movie Fargo, you probably don’t realize that it’s a happening kind of place albeit very, very cold.
Meet Megan Heltemes and Rachael Runick of Integreon. The company does outsourcing work of document review, legal translations, word processing and more. They cater to all size firms including BigFirms and in-house legal departments all over the world. Megan has been with the company over 7 years and Rachael 3 1/2. Both have experienced something that paralegals might not have a shot at, depending upon where you work - upward mobility and a defined career path.
Megan’s position is Director of Professional Document Services America. Her responsibilities include oversight for Fargo delivery operation; account client accounts day to day; manage group of other delivery managers; account implementation; account management; RFP process with new clients. She is in charge of scheduling, hiring and acting as a client liaison, setting up new law firms and training protocols and procedures. She manages teams of lawyers, paralegals and proof readers on cases from all over the world and she worked her way up to this prestigious management position.
Rachaell, on the other hand, is the Delivery Center Manager. Nope, not delivery of pizzas by any means. This hotshot young executive manages a group of associate managers with large teams that focus on production. She serves as escalation point; concerned with production; and has some oversight with being account liason; and has some functional responsibilities such as scheduling, ensuring the individuals in the building are assigned properly. Her focus is on document production; legal word processing and transcription.
These were two happy campers I spoke with. Legal outsourcing is a huge business right now and a viable alternative for those paralegals (and lawyers) seeking to make a change utilizing their paralegal skills but not quite knowing in which direction to go. If you are seeking a vertical climb up a ladder, you might want to consider a career with a vendor such as Integreon.
What do you do in Fargo, North Dakota? Well, on the right days you can find Megan ice fishing. Really. That’s where you sit in a shack in the middle of a frozen lake with a tub filled with beer and wait for a nibble on your fishing pool freezing your patooti off. I know stuff. I’ve been to Minnesota in 60 degrees below. Rachael, on the other hand, has a card engraving hobby and makes beautiful cards. The point here is, they have a life. If your idea of having of life is coming from the rat-race, getting take-out from the downstairs Chinese restaurant and plopping yourself on your couch in front of your flat screen after 10 1/2 hours of billable time watching a mindless survival show of people stranded on a deserted island, you might want to find out why other folks are living life to the fullest. At least these two, anyway. Read the rest of this entry »
Let me point out that surveillance is not all fun and car chases. It can be rather demanding on you both physically and mentally. It often requires working early morning hours, late evening hours, and many weekends and holidays. What is the primary trait required to be successful at surveillance? Patience! Surveillance requires hours upon hours of waiting and watching, watching and waiting. You can not allow your concentration to break from the task at hand. Activity can take place in seconds and if you are daydreaming or changing the station on the radio, you could miss it all. Please note that the words “claimant” and “subject” are used interchangeably, but are always referring to the party that you are conducting the surveillance on.
I once performed surveillance for six days, ten hours per day, and only obtained 17 seconds of video. Knowing only this information would make most people wonder just how good of an investigator I was. However, the truth is that this brief video won the case for my client and saved them over $300,000. The claimant in that case alleged that he was paralyzed from the waist down and that he required the use of a wheelchair everywhere he went. On one rainy afternoon the claimant was preparing to leave his house, and his wife had carried his wheelchair to the car. The claimant ran from the house to the car, found the door locked, and ran back inside the house. A few seconds later, he ran back to the car and climbed inside. Approximately 20 minutes later the claimant arrived at his doctor’s office. He now required his wife’s assistance to get out of the car and had to be placed in the wheelchair. Read the rest of this entry »
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