Incident Room

An incident room is an onsite facility where a specialist major incident team (MIT) co-ordinate operations to do with the case. The MIT team are specifically trained to carry out this role; this is because typically the police offices within the community do not deal with high end crimes therefore they will need some assistance and guidance in what the most appropriate actions are to take.

The incident rooms are typically set up within the community where the crime took place, this enables information from the public to be gathered and processed at a more efficient rate. As the general public are able to go to the incident rooms or phone the incident room hotline to provide information that may help with the case. All the information that is received is logged, and the MIT team will then filter through all the information to identify what may have specific relevance in solving the case and then they will pursue that line of enquiry.

An incident room is not necessary in all cases; it is typically used when the crime is child abduction. This is because the public will want to try and get involved with the case and offer any information they have that may lead to finding the child. As they officials have to gather as much information in the first 48 hours of child abductions, as the survival rate drops to over half after 48 hours. Therefore they have to work at a remarkably quick rate, thus an incident room helps to achieve this. This is because it will be quicker for key witnesses to go and provide evidence rather than the officials having to interview the whole neighbourhood.

This stage is typically carried out after the preliminary investigation; this is so they are able to gather as much material as early as possible, to enable them to then construct potential lines on enquiry.

Within the case of Paul Morin an incident room was not set up, however it may have been useful within the case. As the detectives from the offset understood that it was a potential abduction due to suspicious circumstances. Therefore if they had of set up an incident room, they may have been able to gather key information from citizens within the neighbourhood or by individuals who were visiting the neighbourhood (as it was a popular place to visit) before they left.