Record is the name that receives an official document, where a certain event is certified. Police, meanwhile, is an adjective that refers to what is linked to the police (a state security body).
A police record is a document where a police authority details a procedure, an event or some type of event linked to a possible punishable act. The police report is the starting point for the development of an investigation, since it informs how, when and where the event happened and how the security force personnel intervened.
In each country, however, the police record may have different characteristics. At a general level, it can be said that these documents should be accurate (based on facts, not assumptions or rumors), impartial (they do not include opinions) and exhaustive (they include all the information obtained). They must also be drafted sequentially (following the order of the procedures that were carried out) and respect the formal aspects of the case.
Typically, the police record is drawn up at the scene to minimize the possibility of information being left out of the document. In some cases, however, the procedure is carried out in an office.
If the victim of a crime makes a complaint by telephone and manages to retain the aggressor at the scene, then the police officers can go there and ask all the pertinent questions to both parties to prepare the police report appropriately. In a case like this, many times they also have the presence of witnesses, who can provide useful information for the subsequent investigation.
On the other hand, sometimes it is not necessary for an individual to contact the police station to request the help of the police force, since it may happen that the agent patrols detect a criminal situation on public roads and act directly and immediately.
Suppose an agent stops a man when he watches him break a car window for apparent theft. When writing the police report, the officer begins by writing:
“In the city of San Mateo, at eighteen hours on the twelfth day of August in the year two thousand and fifteen, the undersigned, Deputy Commissioner Juan López Gutiérrez, observes a male individual hitting the front left window of a brand car with a stone Renault model Clio patent 561803ADE, causing the glass to break and inserting its body through the opening created… ”.
As can be seen in the previous example, the structure of a police record presents certain very particular resources, which are not used in the literature, since in this case accuracy is the highest priority, and the beauty of the text does not matter. While fiction authors often give rise to the imagination of the readers, avoiding mentioning certain overly specific data, a document of this type aims to record all the known details of the situation described in it.
On the other hand, it is important to note that the accuracy of the police report in no way limits the methods by which an agent gathers information. The inquiry process leading to the development of this document can be very arduous, and requires a combination of patience, insight, and experience. For example, people involved in a crime are not always willing to make statements, or do not have the necessary linguistic resources to express themselves clearly; Faced with these and other difficulties, the police must adapt and find the best way to reconstruct the scene.
