ABSTRACT
This chapter in divided into three main sections. The first provides a brief historical perspective on the development of criminal investigation in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries as a set of routine practices (both formal and formal), locating it as a core component of the ‘modern’ approaches to crime control that emerged with the growth of centralised bureaucracies and the nation-state. It also identifies common myths about the nature of criminal investigation and considers some theoretical perspectives that offer an alternative picture.
