Linguistic Deviations in Police Investigative Report

Police investigation reports are regarded as vital documents in the law enforcement community for they are exhibited as one of the evidences in courts. Being one of the contributing factors on the decision of the prosecution, these reports must be produced with good quality: based on facts, absence of ambiguity, and free from content and linguistic deviations. The purpose of this study was to describe the linguistic deviations of police reports. Thirty police reports were examined. The results revealed three types of linguistic deviations: lexical morphological and syntactical. For lexical, errors included inappropriate word choice and redundancy. Morphological errors consisted of subject-verb concordance, incorrect tense of the verb while syntactical comprised the misuse of passive voice, misuse of active voice, and misplaced modifiers. The findings imply that deviations in police reports manifest the lack of knowledge in the use of English language. Since police reports are also part of the supporting evidence of cases in the court, misuse and deviations in the use of language can cloud the intended message. If possible, instead of writing the report in English, the court may also consider the use of regional dialects or mother tongue language to ensure accuracy in the narration and presentation of circumstances covered in the police investigative report.