As an investigator, you should always improve your investigative skills. According to Nicky Smith and Conor Flanagan, employees at the Home Office and Reducing Crime Unit, investigative skills refer to the ability to learn, understand, assess, and prioritize information and make inferences from data that will further a cause of inquiry. As an investigator, developing your investigative skills is important because your work involves setting changes with the emergence of novel and delicate situations.
Also, the more severe and obscure a crime is, the more difficult it will be for the investigator to resolve. So, the investigator is usually required to exhibit a high level of professional competence to resolve such crimes.
One key method to improving your investigative skills is to pay attention to facts objectively without adding your prejudices to them. Not examining facts from an objective point of view can adversely affect the investigation process. So, you must take active steps to eliminate unconscious bias or preconceptions during investigations. Preconceptions are ideas or opinions formed before an investigator begins an investigation. Effective investigators have a good hold on their inherent biases.
You can also develop your investigative skills by working on your communication skills. Good communication skills allow you to investigate effectively. It also allows you to interact well with colleagues involved in the same investigation, legal counsel, and anyone involved in a case. Active listening is one of the key ways an investigator can improve their communication skills. This usually involves paying attention to a speaker while trying to get their perspective.
In addition, as an investigator, you should have sound interview skills. This is important because it helps you to retrieve important information from suspects and witnesses seamlessly. Building trust and establishing a friendly relationship with your interviewee before asking them questions is one way to achieve this.
As an investigator, you should know the right questions to ask during an interview. You should also be familiar with when and how to ask them. Particularly, it is best that investigators ask open-ended questions. Open-ended questions help you get more elaborate and detailed responses during an interview.
Also, as an investigator, you should be ready to react in time. When you get informed of an incident that needs to be accessed, it is necessary to respond as fast as you can. Taking time to respond could be detrimental to the case, and taking immediate steps can hinder evidence from being tampered with.
Another way to improve your investigative skills is to meticulously craft a collection of supporting evidence, each of which can be proven valid. In doing so, you should try to confirm information from different sources. Consider recalling the origin of the term "witness" (to perceive through personal presence and awareness). You should pay attention to instances when witnesses speak in first person, particularly when a witness asserts using phrases like, "I observed" or "I listened," in contrast to saying, "I believe."
Further, you must improve your observation skills. This means that you must stay alert and be aware of your environment. When collecting data, inspecting a location and documenting significant particulars are crucial. In addition to paying attention to the environment, observation skills are also relevant during interviews. They help the investigator to discern non-verbal signals and conflicting statements, helping them to make more accurate findings.
