Tailing a Suspect

Sometimes during an investigation, a detective has to tail, or follow, a suspect. The suspect may make contact with other suspects or might lead the detective to more evidence. Try the following activity at school or another safe location to test your ability to tail a person.

Materials

- Notebook
- Pen or pencil
- Watch
- Several helpers


Procedure
1. Gather several helpers together. Inform them that at some point during the next week, you are going to tail one of them as part of an experiment. (Telling them that you are going to tail them makes your task more difficult but will avoid their embarrassment.)
CAUTION: Tail the person at schol or in another safe location, such as a party. Never wander around alone.
2. Choose a day and select one person to follow for one hour. Use your notebook to record notes of his or her activities and any people the person encounters. Record the time for all notes you make.
3. When you have finished tailing the person, review your notes. Are there any activities that surprised you? Could you tell exactly what happened during each encounter with other people? Did the person figure out that you were tailing him or her?

More Fun Stuff to Do

Detectives seldom follow a suspect by themselves. They usually work in teams to prevent the suspect from getting suspicious. Often a second, third or even a fourth detective will pick up the trail where the previous detective leaves off. Try using a team to trail one of your helpers.

Explanation

It is difficult to tail a person without being noticed. If a suspect sees the same person, especially a stranger, over and over again, the suspect’s brain is alerted that something out of the ordinary has happened. He or she will become more cautious and will try to see whether someone is indeed tailing him or her. This is why the police use teams to follow suspects. One person will follow the suspect for a short time, then a second, third, or eve a fourth detective will pick up the trail. The suspect does not see the same person, so the suspect’s brain is not lerted that something unusual is happening.

Tailin a suspect is a form of surveillance. The term surveillance comes from the French word surveiller, which measn “to watch over.” Police practice surveillance for many reasons. They may watch a suspect’s home or place of work in order to gain information or even to catch the suspect. This is sometimes called a stakeout. They may trail a suspect to get other information, such as a suspect’s habits, daily routine, personal contacts, and place of work, home address, or type of information used.

The detective can be use the information gathered from observing a suspect to form a hypothesis or theory about the suspect, just as a scientist uses information to form a hyphotesis about an experiment. For example, if a suspect meets with the same person ath the same time every day and is seen passing slips of paper to that person, then the detective might make the hypothesis that the suspect is involve in a gambling operation and that the slips ofpaper are betting slips. The detective will then continue to investigate to determine whether that hypothesis is correct, in the same way that a scientist will test a hypothesis through experimentation.