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Police Enforcement And Criminal Investigation Essay

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Law enforcement, in some form, has existed for centuries and since its creation there has been numerous improvements. Improvements have come about because of community changes and the need for more effective ways of policing the people. As crimes became more fierce and complex so did the need for the investigation and solving of these crimes. Criminal investigative techniques were not just born from thin air, some thought and planning had to go into figuring out the proper ways to go about doing things. Pioneers of the criminal justice and criminal investigation field such as August Vollmer, Alphonse Bertillon, Edward Henry, and Edmond Locard have made superior contributions to the development of criminal investigative techniques. These techniques have impacted the way police operate today and set a substantial base for law enforcement to build on. Alphonse Bertillon devised a system simply called, The Bertillon System. This was a first attempt at criminal identification and was thought to be reliable and accurate. Bertillon developed an anthropometric system of physical measurements of body parts, especially components of the head and face. This system was used primarily to determine if a person in custody had committed a previous crime. Archives of these records began to be compiled. A form of this system is still used today, but we now call them “mugshots”. (Bertillon System of Criminal Identification, 2011). Although mugshots are still used today, anthropometry was

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