Nearly every service we perform as police officers calls for the initiation of some type of permanent record

The Importance of the Police Report

Kirk B. Redwine

Criminal Justice Institute

School of Law Enforcement Supervision

Session XXII

October 26, 2003

The Importance of the Police Report

Most entertainment media represents police work as an unrelenting and constant barrage

of exciting chases and shootouts, where the good guy always wins in the end. Unfortunately,

this is, for the most part, quite an inaccurate depiction of the majority of police work. In fact, I

believe the vast majority of good police work is supported entirely by an officer's ability to

present accurate, detailed and informative information in the form of the police report. Nearly

every service we perform as police officers calls for the initiation of some type of permanent

record. This record may be anything from a single line entry concerning an unlocated problem

to a lengthy detailed investigative document describing unimaginable pain and suffering.

One's skills as a police officer are largely evaluated based on his or her written reports.

An officer must not only be able to do his job well and within the scope of the law, but he must

also be able to accurately record information concerning those activities and present it to those

who were not there.

In most instances, the ranking supervisor will not be present as an officer is investigating

an incident. It will likely be this supervisor who ultimately reviews and passes judgment on the

reports generated by the officer. It will be this supervisor's responsibility to determine whether

or not the officer followed the proper policies and procedures of the department, as well as

applicable laws concerning the initial investigation. Eventually there is the potential for a large

number of people to read these reports. In many instances, it will be up to some of these people

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to pass judgment on others based on much of the information presented in these police reports.

Follow up investigators from the original department, and/or other agencies will determine what

an officer has done in the case based on the information that has been presented in the report.

These officers will then have to decide what they will need to do next in order to continue the

investigation and successfully bring it to a close.

Initial investigating officers should not only indicate what they did in the their reports,

but should also record what they did not do, and the reasons why. For example, if an attempt

was made to contact a potential witness and that contact was not made because the witness works

nights, then this information should be listed in the report. This would be important information

for the follow up investigators to know before potentially wasting valuable time. Follow up

investigators will often retrace the initial investigating officer's footsteps, and potentially

complete a number of unnecessary steps that could have been avoided had the original officer

recorded all of his actions. This could relate to a tremendous loss of valuable time.

Since these initial investigating officers are generally the first responding officers to the

scene of an incident, it is of paramount importance to accurately and descriptively record short-

lived evidence. These could include odors, stains, sounds, even the actions, statements and

demeanor of witnesses, suspects and victims. The drama of heated verbal exchanges or physical

altercations between an officer and an attacker may seem bland, uneventful or even routine to

one reading the police report if all of the information is not listed.

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As a prosecutor sits in his office some days after a crime has occurred, he will not have

the ability to hear the frantic screams of the victim nor be able to smell the blood and burnt

gunpowder. It will be up to the prosecutor to understand the full scope of the event simply by

reading the police reports. He will then have to determine whether all of the elements of the

crime have been presented, in order to sustain the proper charge, and ultimately prove the case.

In addition to the prosecutor, Judges, other attorneys and juries will have to rely on specific

information recorded in police reports to make a decision about the honesty, deception, guilt

and/or innocence of the parties involved in the reported event.

Many officers seem to be under the impression that the police report they are writing will

simply find itself in a dark cabinet drawer somewhere never to be seen again. They do not

consider the importance of the document as it is being written, nor do they consider those who

may end up reading it. Insurance companies require completed police reports before they can act

on claims by victims. These reports may initiate further investigations by representatives of the

insurance companies, as well as further criminal investigation. The majority of police reports are

considered public record and available to anyone desiring to obtain them. Media representatives

may read most available police reports as they look for an interesting story. The victims,

witnesses and suspects listed in these reports often have the opportunity to obtain and read them.

If the report is inaccurate, misleading or untruthful, there could be damaging repercussions. An

officer's integrity and credibility is at stake.

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Types of Police Reports

Because most police action requires some type of documentation, there are a number of

different types of reports that are filed by police officers. Since most of these reports are

specific to certain types of events, most police departments have adopted specific forms to be

filled out concerning a common occurrence. These report forms generally contain blank spaces,

lines or boxes for specific information to be written in such as symbols, numbers or other

identification and statistical information. In general, an officer simply writes the pertinent

information in these spaces, then goes about constructing the body of the report, which is the

narrative. Though most departments design and print their own forms, the majority of them are

quite similar in nature and design, as they require pretty much the same information. Their may

be dozens of different forms used by police agencies everywhere, but probably the four (4) most

common types of pre-printed police report forms fall into the following categories, listed in no

particular order of importance:

1. Offense Reports

2. Incident Reports

3. Arrest Reports

4. Accident Reports

Offense Reports

Offense reports, often called Crime Reports, are just that. They are reports of some type

of criminal action against another. The victim is usually in individual, but may also be an

organization or entity such as a business or even the City or State Government itself. There are

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literally hundreds of types of criminal violations that occur, with far-reaching and different

consequences. This is why everything should be considered important as it relates to the

reported crime, or the elements of that crime. For instance, what may appear to be a burglary is

not really a burglary at all unless certain elements have been met. Likewise, a robbery is not

really a robbery unless certain elements of that crime have been met. Some events may have

begun as one crime and then escalated into another, more serious, crime. Police officers must

know what information they need to determine what elements are present, so that the specific

crime can be identified. All of this information should be recorded to indicate exactly what

happened during the event.

Offense reports are generally one of the more detailed, if not the most detailed of police

reports. These reports generally contain considerably more information about the particular

methods a crime has been carried out, the specific injuries or property damages sustained by a

victim and all the different directions an officer took to investigate the crime. These reports

usually contain all of the necessary information to obtain arrest warrants for the suspects, so most

of that information is not needed on the arrest report once the suspect is taken into custody.

The offense report form itself may be quite detailed, leaving only a limited amount of

space for the narrative. The offense report form currently used by the Fort Smith Police

Department (see Figure 1) contains a minimum of four pages. This form provides blank spaces

for hand written information as well as a number of small boxes to be filled in using certain

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coded numbers. These numbers refer to each specific crime, victim, witness, suspect and piece

of property involved in the offense. Much of this information is simply gathered for statistical

purposes, and as you can see, very little space has been provided on the form for the narrative

itself. This was taken into consideration, and the department has answered this dilemma with the

design of another report form, the Incident Report form.

Figure 1 Fort Smith Police Department Offense Report Form

Page 1 Page 2

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Page 3 Page 4

Incident Reports

An incident report, sometimes referred to as a call for service report, or a complaint

report, is a report that is written that outlines the occurrence of specific events that are not really

considered criminal in nature. If a person calls the police because they observe something that

appears to be suspicious, and an officer investigates only to find that no crime has occurred, this

is the type of information that would be listed on an incident report. These reports are usually

very short, but could be rather lengthy given the nature of police work, and types of odd

predicaments people find themselves in occasionally.

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As mentioned previously the Fort Smith Police Department has designed its Incident

Report Form to be multi-functional (Figure 2). This form provides almost the entire portion of

the page for narrative. In addition to its use as

an incident report, this form has boxes that can

be checked indicating that this might be

additional offense narrative information, or an

additional arrest narrative or a supplemental

investigation. The corresponding offense /

Incident number identifying the case would be

written in the box at the upper-most left corner.

If this number does not correspond with any

other report, then there is probably no crime

and a brief description of the incident is all that

is needed.

Figure 2 Fort Smith Police Department Incident Report

Arrest Reports

The Arrest report is a very important document, as it outlines the reasons that a person's

freedom has been temporarily taken from him. Arrest reports should contain information

concerning how and why an officer has encountered the arrested party. It needs to contain all of

the observations an officer makes pertaining to the commission of the crime or crimes. The

report should also contain information about what was necessary in order to take the subject into

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custody. Was there a use of force and if so why? This information may very well lead to other

investigations, including internal investigations to determine potential police misconduct. As I

indicated previously, a detailed offense report may contain all the required information to outline

and sustain an arrest charge. If this is the case, it will seldom be necessary to repeat all of this

information in the arrest report itself, but a brief summary should be given.

The Fort Smith Police Department

Arrest Report form (Figure 3) is a single

page report that utilizes about two-thirds of

the page for fill in the blank information,

and the remaining third of the page for

narrative. This report is actually printed on

the back side of the Incident Report,

requiring an officer to simply flip the page

and continue a lengthy narrative.

Figure 3 Fort Smith Police Department Arrest Report

Accident Reports

Accident reports describe the events and causes that unfold during motor vehicle

accidents. I believe accident reports have the highest potential to be viewed by more people than

any of the other police reports filed. These forms are filed more so for insurance purposes than

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for criminal investigation purposes, although many accident investigations do lead to criminal

charges. These reports are much more likely to be viewed by the involved parties than the

average offense, incident or arrest report. A number of people involved with insurance

companies will look at the accident report, and complete or begin their own investigation based

on much of the information in that report. Copies of each of these reports must be sent to the

State, where they will be viewed by a number of people. Cities and towns use these reports to

determine problem intersections and roadways.

A great number of people involved in accidents and subsequently cited for traffic

violations end up in court pleading their cases. There is good reason for this too, because many

of these cases also end up with Civil Claims having been brought about, especially if there is a

large monetary loss or serious injury. Just imagine the number of people that are likely to look

an accident report.

The Arkansas Motor Vehicle Collision Report form is utilized by every police agency in

the state. In addition to the four-page basic report form (Figure 4), there are several other forms

that may be needed, depending on the types of vehicles involved, such as large commercial

vehicles. Since this paper is primarily concerned with the content of report narratives, I will not

go into these additional accident report pages.

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Figure 4 Arkansas Motor Vehicle Collision Report

Page 1 Page 2

Page 3 Page 4

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You will notice that less than one-half of one of the four pages (Page 2) in the basic

accident report has been allotted for the narrative. I believe that this gives police officers a false

impression about the importance of the narrative, and unfortunately, most accident report

narratives reflect this perceived lack of importance (see Figure 5). I often tell officers that the

accident report narrative should tell me almost everything I need to know about the accident. I

should be able to read the narrative and know, who, what, where, when, why and how, without

having to flip through the other three pages to understand what has happened. This information

is critical in any report, and is what I call the Report Style.

Figure 5 An actual accident report narrative turned in as a finished product.

Report Style

As I have outlined previously there are a number of specific report forms utilized by

officers and departments all over the world. These forms make it easier to quickly allow an

officer to get to the meat of the matter, which is the narrative of the report. The narrative should

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explain all of the fundamentals of the occurrence, in an understandable and chronological order

of events. The narrative is really the most crucial part of the report, as it tells the all-important

story. It should explain who was involved, what happened, where it happened, when it

happened, why it happened the way it did and how all these events unfolded.

I do not understand why it is that normal, intelligent and fairly well spoken people who

become police officers suddenly stop talking normally. New police officers tend to suddenly

adopt a lot of police jargon, much of which the average person will not understand. Police cars

suddenly become "patrol units" or "squads," I or we transform into things like "undersigned," or

"officers," and people change into "victim #1," or "suspect #2." Unfortunately, this tends to get

more detailed and can go on and on indefinitely. Usually this type of strange language just tends

to confuse the average reader, and does not really impress anyone at all.

To quote Thomas Adams, "What happened to good 'olde' English?" (1994, p. 166)

Adams goes on to discuss how things would be far less difficult if officers would simply write

their reports the way they talk. I agree with this to a certain extent. Unfortunately I have read far

too many reports that were written exactly the way the officer talks, which is usually just as

improper, if not worse than using all the police jargon. Figure 6 shows a number of examples of

improper grammar or word usage that I have taken from police reports that have been submitted.

I have compiled this information into a short report that I have entitled What's The Problem?

which I update regularly and provide to my subordinates. We, most people in general, "talk

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wrong," as I frequently say to the officers I am supervising, and whose reports I must approve

before they are sent on to be seen by who knows how many more people. I go on to explain that

we speak incorrect English, often using incomplete sentences and words, slang terms and

improper grammar. We do this because we are inherently lazy, and have accepted these

mannerisms as normal. If this is the way most of us talk, we should not be encouraged to write

this way, though many do. Often, we even speak in incomplete thoughts, because when we

speak we are able to use hand gestures, facial expressions and voice inflection to assist in getting

that "all important" point across. I understand what Adams means by his statement though. He

means that we should write a report as though we were explaining what happened to a friend or

coworker, and leave out the jargon, slang and improper grammar.

Figure 6 What's The Problem?

Laying vs. lying: Example “I saw the subject laying on the ground.”

Correct I saw the subject lying on the ground.

Laying is a physical act of placing an object. Lying means to physically recline, to lie prostrate or prone. Lay and Lie

as well. One might lay an object down and then lie himself next to it.

Sitting vs. Setting Example “was setting in the chair by the table”

Correct “was sitting in the chair by the table”

Setting is a physical act of placing an object or objects, such as setting a table or setting something into a location,

(setting a post, etc.) Sitting is the physical act of resting ones body in an upright position in a chair for example. Sit and

Set as well.

Seen vs. saw Example “I seen the subject lying on the ground.”

Correct I saw the subject lying on the ground.

Seen and Saw are both past tense usage of the verb see. If the word seen is used, it should be preceded by the word had

or have.

Should of vs. Should have “The suspect should of known ……”

Correct The suspect should have known……etc.

Also commonly seen as: could of, would of, must of, etc. All these should be changed to have, instead of the word “of.”

Passerbyers vs. Passersby “information was given by the passerbyers…”

Correct “information was given by the passersby…”

Passerbyers is not a word. More than one passerby would be passersby.

To vs. Too vs. Two Example “said V2 was traveling to fast and couldn’t stop”

Correct “said V2 was traveling too fast…..”

To is directive, as in the direction of, or toward. Too means also. Two is a number.

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Many Supervisors believe that officers should present an unbiased relationship to victims

and suspects, and that they can present this detached image better by writing their reports in a

third person manner. There are some departments that will accept nothing less than reports

written this way. Some believe that this will avoid the impression that police officers are

egotistical by using "I" too often in the report. Others believe that it simply looks and sounds

more professional. If an officer is in a court and describing events and explaining his actions, he

will say, "I" did this or that, "I spoke with..." "She told me...," and so on. This is the way we

speak, and explain things, and I believe that it is only proper to write a police report in the same

manner. Police reports are about events that have occurred. If a police officer is taking a police

report then he has become involved in the event. It makes no sense to me to try to detach the

officer from those events if he has become a part of it.

Capital Letters

Another problem I see frequently in report narratives is the use of all capital letters.

Many officers have the mistaken impression that using "all Caps" makes the report look more

official. Unfortunately, what this does is just make the report more difficult to read. A complete

narrative using all capital letters is very monotonous and distracting. It tends to cause the reader

to want to hurry through the report, potentially missing important information, and not

understanding the gist of the report. It is just not very pleasing to the reader, and I discourage

people from writing this way whenever I can.

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Spelling and Grammar

What kind of impression would it make on those who must decide the guilt or innocence

of a suspect if they were to find that the police report is full of misspelled words and grammatical

errors? How does this reflect on the officer that prepared the report, and is supposed to be a

knowledgeable and highly trained professional, especially if he is alleged to have a college

degree? Those who read the report may believe that the author was either uneducated or did not

really care about what he was writing, which would indicate that he didn't care about the crime

itself, the victim or the suspect. One might believe that the officer was just plain stupid. This

then, reflects negatively on not only the officer, but his superiors as well, and perhaps, the entire

police department.

The English language is a very complicated one made up of many different words from

other languages. Each of these languages has its own rules for pronunciation and spelling. The

results are often confusing to say the least, and provide legitimacy to the notion that even many

very intelligent people have difficulty spelling. Bennett and Hess (1998, p. 131) give a perfect

example of these differences as they discuss seven words containing the letters ough, each

having its own sound: dough, bought, bough, rough, through, thorough and hiccough. What

other language does this play on pronunciations as much as English? Well it truly is no wonder

that people have such a problem with spelling.

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I often instruct my subordinates to carry a small dictionary with them, and to use it. A

dictionary will not only give you the correct spelling of a word, but it can also tell you its

pronunciation, whether it should be capitalized, and how to abbreviate it. Hess and Wrobleski

(1996, p. 131) have come up with 76 of the most frequently misspelled words in police reports

(see Figure 7). I have added this list to my What's The Problem?

report that I provide to my

subordinates. After reading countless police reports over the years I have come up with several

additional words that I have added to this list: Amphetamine, Aggravated, Chief, Driver's

License, License, Maneuver, Necessary, Paraphernalia, Receive and Separate. As I observe a

pattern of certain misspelled words over time, those too will end up on the list.

Figure 7 Most Frequently Misspelled Words in Police Reports

Abduction

Accelerated

Accessories

Accident

Acquitted

Affidavit

Altercation

Apparatus

Arson

Assaulted

Bureau

Burglary

Coercion

Commission

Complainant

Conspiracy

Conviction

Corpse

Counterfeit

Criminal

Defendant

Dispatched

Disposition

Drunkenness

Embezzlement

Emergency

Evidence

Extortion

Forcible

Fraudulent

Homicide

Indict

Interrogate

Intimidation

Intoxication

Investigation

Juvenile

Larceny

Legal

Lieutenant

Offense

Official

Pedestrian

Penalize

Possession

Precinct

Premises

Prosecute

Prostitution

Pursuit

Resistance

Robbery

Sabotage

Scene

Seize

Sentence

Sergeant

Serious

Sheriff

Statute

Strangulation

Subpoena

Suicide

Summons

Surrender

Surveillance

Suspect

Suspicion

Testimony

Thief

Thieves

Traffic

Trespassing

Truancy

Vagrancy

Victim

Warrant

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Handwriting Vs. Typing

As I have already mentioned, it is very important for police officers to consider who will

be reading these police reports after they are written. Of course, it goes without saying that due

to the gravity of many police reports, they must be legible. In an ideal situation all police reports

would, if not should, be typed. Unfortunately, this is quite often not possible. Many officers

prefer to hand write their reports. Many simply cannot type, or are so unfamiliar with typing that

to do so would profoundly interfere with the amount of time an officer needs to spend on patrol

activities. If you must handwrite a report, make certain that it is neat and legible.

At one time, the Fort Smith Police Department required all police reports of any real

significance to be typed. This included every offense, arrest and accident report, as well as any

supplemental investigations. A requirement such as this would mean that a large percentage of

an officer's shift was spent away from his patrol district or beat, and in front of a typewriter

pecking away at the keys, proving to be a very inefficient method of handling the continuing

problems on the officer's beat.

It was decided some years ago that our officers would be allowed to submit handwritten

reports, which would eventually be entered into a computer system by civilian employees. I

have encountered several problems with this method. Many officers simply scribble their

reports out as quickly as possible. They write incomplete thoughts, use slang terms, police

jargon, no punctuation and improper grammar, all of the things I've been discussing, then expect

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that one of the data entry employees will, "clean it all up in the end." Another problem with this

method is that the accident report will not be rewritten into a computer by data entry. The

submitted report is the finished product, and an officer that has become too lazy to write an

offense report well, does not suddenly repent when it comes to writing an accident report.

Remember the example given earlier during the discussion about accident reports? However the

finished product is presented, it should be easily read.

Computers have made a significant impact on report writing. Word processing software

that contains spelling and grammar checkers, a number of interesting fonts and font sizes assist

even those who have difficulty writing in producing much better reports. I prefer this method of

report writing, as I know that my own handwriting and spelling skills are somewhat lacking. It is

also much easier to change information as it is being typed, as well as afterward, and you still

end up with a much nicer and neater finished product.

Much has been written over the years in an effort to teach people how to write well.

Most basic police training deals with some form and quantity of report writing information, and

there are many texts that contain lengthy sections on the subject. The items I have discussed in

this paper outline some of the very basic information, and problems I see regularly, relating to

the written police report. Like others, I could go on and on, but when it comes to teaching my

subordinates how and why to improve their report writing skills, this is the information I try to

provide them. I reiterate often: Consider your audience, construct a rough draft before writing

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the final narrative, tell the story chronologically, use proper spelling and grammar, don't leave

out important details, and if you must hand write it, do so neatly and legibly. I also instruct

officer to read their reports after they have written them. Read it word for word. Allow a

coworker to read it. Often times we can "read in" our own meaning, but others see the report for

what is written. It is often easier for others to find missing or misspelled words.

There was a time when all you really had to do to be a police officer was to know right

from wrong and handle yourself well enough in a fight to get the bad guy to jail. I recall hearing

older police officers telling tales of the types of reports they submitted back then. "Met drunk,

arrested same." "Subject stated he wouldn't go to jail without a fight. Subject in jail at time of

this report!" Well times have changed, and so has police work. The job requires a much more

knowledgeable police officer. One who can still handle himself in a fight, and can still get the

bad guy to jail, but must make certain that it is done correctly, within the boundaries of the law,

and all elements of the event recorded properly. A person's guilt or innocence may rely on

information either given or not given in these records, and there may be plenty of people out

there searching for those weak links. This is why I continue to stress the importance of the

police report.

References

Adams, Thomas F., (1994). Police Field Operations, Third Edition. Prentice Hall Career &

Technology, (p. 160 - 182)

Hess, Karen M. and Wrobleski, Henry M., (1996). For the Record: Report Writing in Law

Enforcement, 4th Edition. Innovative Systems, (p. 82 - 96)

Bennett, Wayne W. and Hess, Karen M., (1998). Criminal Investigation, Fifth Edition.

West/Wadsworth Publishing Company, (p. 131)