What is a Crime Scene Report?

Hide Assignment Information

Crime Scene Project Part 1 Instructions

You’ll be working on the crime scene throughout the semester. You’ll also be writing reports throughout the semester, then at the end you’ll write one big crime scene report with all of the information gathered throughout the semester. This is like a video game. The nice thing about this crime scene is that if you do screw it up, you can start over. The purpose of this program is to show you what can be done, and how easy it is to make a mistake!

The crime scene game is run off of Flash technology. The Flash player is free. Please go to http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash to download the Flash player. The Crime Scene Game is located in Course Content, under Crime Scene Game/Project.

For the first part I just want you in the crime scene. Please DO NOT enter the laboratory. You can restart this game as often as you want.

Once you have analyzed the crime scene to your satisfaction I want you to write a crime scene report. In this report I want you to

1. Tell me your actions leading up to you entering the crime scene room

2. Tell me what the apartment consisted of.

3. Tell me what the room looked like.

4. Tell me what you did inside that room.

To use a cliché, be Joe Friday and give me “Just the Facts!” (Dragnet. Look it up!) Although this should be detailed, it should not be flowery or overly descriptive. However, you still need to use prepositions such as “the” and “a”. I want report writing, not robot writing. This is not fiction. This report will be read by the prosecution, the defense, the judge and the jury. Keep that in mind. Everything in this report must be factual and objective. No conjuncture yet.

Your audience for this report in NOT me! The audience is the judge and jury. Please write with a jury in mind. Explain everything. The worst thing you can do is say to yourself “The Professor already knows this, so I don’t have to explain it.” I am not your audience.

I also want a complete listing of all evidence collected, in table format. Keep notes in your journal to help you with this list later. For our purposes, the wall that the bed is against is the east wall of this apartment. I would also like you to make a sketch of the room. If you have access to a scanner, please scan your sketch as either a .pdf for jpeg file. If you do not have access to a scanner, please take a photograph of your sketch that shows the entire sketch. Even a cell phone photo will work. This sketch is required and part of your grading rubric.

Attached in the Crime Scene Project area of Content are 2 “example” crime scene reports. Read these reports for formatting and read them for writing style tips. In the same area is a MSWord document that is a template for your report. You must use that document for formatting, therefore open that document and save it as your starting point! Your report must be formatted with a header just like the one on the template. You can change the name of the police department. You must also have an end format (report submitted by area) like the template. The only difference is that your report must be double spaced. If you do not use the template you will lose points. The report should be typed in MSWord. It should be submitted as an attachment in your Assignments folder. The attachment must have the name: YourLastName_CSR. Your sketch must be submitted at the same time. Please do not wait until the last moment to try and use this program. You need to start this assignment this week, just in case you have technical difficulties. If you have any questions, please post them in the Ask the Prof Discussion.