Objectives
- Compare and contrast approaches to training for work groups that vary in size, experience, and availability
- Evaluate the benefits of formalized training for those investigating and prosecuting white collar crime
Introduction
The recruitment and selection of investigators has been discussed in this Book, and guidelines suggested for these tasks. Proper selection is very important, yet it is only a beginning of the process of developing first-rate investigators. Candidates for the position of investigator require further training to develop a high level of professional skill, even if they have prior investigative experience. A detective who has worked only in homicide or even in street bunco may have to be oriented toward new types of investigative techniques, such as more subtle ways of talking with witnesses and interrogating suspects, more care in planning of arrests, more familiarity with the paper trail. Some investigators may have had experience only with certain limited types of white collar crimes, such as embezzlement, and may not be oriented to other types of criminals and crimes, such as land fraud which is perpetrated more openly.
Resources or other factors will often prevent having a recruiting procedure that capitalizes on the personal motives of candidates, for example, personal motivations and qualifications to deal with white collar crime. Therefore recruits often will need to be educated to the importance of white collar crime, as well as to the skills involved in investigating such crime. In many situations, white collar crime units may have to cooperate with agencies which have different priorities. In such cases there is a danger that personnel in these other agencies will have to learn the importance of white collar crime, since they may tend to relegate it to a low priority.
Even officers who are experienced white collar crime investigators within an agency may need, to learn about new crimes, and new techniques of investigation. A consumer fraud specialist in an agency may need to learn about stock fraud if there is a sudden increase in the latter in the agency’s jurisdiction; or about computer fraud which relies on a newly developing technology. In the sections below, a number of different approaches to training are described. Not all of these approaches are especially useful for all types of agencies and units. Some agencies may be so big that they can do their own training; others may be so small that they can only send recruits to training schools held on a regional or even national basis. Some agencies may be highly experienced in white collar crime investigation and can capitalize on this experience to help train new investigators; other agencies are entirely new, and will have to depend on the investigators’ own talents and backgrounds and on outside resources for training. In larger agencies, the investigators are more likely to specialize and would need to secure training in other specialties, either