Exit Interview

1. My Essential Question is "How can the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department best utilize their Special Investigations Unit?" 

• The first answer I created was, By increasing their funding and staff, so that they could both pay for new equipment and training to use that equipment." 
• The second answer I came up with was that the Sheriff's Department should sit down with the SPI Unit, and similar teams like them, and discuss the laws written, to clear up any confusion over the definition of what is legal and not. 
• The third answer was the Sheriff's Department needed to clean up it's application process, and work to better compensate and provide incentive it's seniority. 

My best answer was by far the first one. Answer 1 deals with an immediate danger within the SPI Unit, by the LA Sheriff's Department. that being budget cuts, layoffs, and eventual disavowal, where the sheriff would break the unit up and put them back into a larger unit. So the unit needs funds to grow and become prevalent within the department. I came to this answer after my mentorship and being able to look through the Los Angeles County Annual Report, the report had information regarding all public services in the county, and it gave me the budget, acting sheriff, their jurisdiction, and even summaries of each division, including the technical division which my mentor is tied to. using this I learned just how little funding the SPI Unit is actually given.

2. I came around to this answer over the course of my mentorship. There would be constant times while working that I saw they were working with last generation equipment. This isn't so bad when it comes to power tools, but with surveillance equipment, it is vital that they manage to stay ahead of the curve with new technology because of constant counter-espionage attempts to thwart any chance for secret cameras or wiretaps. Another problem that I saw occurring is that over time, no matter how much they balanced their money, or how they planned it out, the detectives would either pay for their training or not go to the training at all, and as I said before, being able to know how counter espionage works puts them at the advantage of being able to both effectively sweep rooms and buildings for hidden devices, and know how to hide them by out thinking those same tactics.

3. A large problem I faced was watching what information I gave. The SPI Unit is a relatively unknown unit and it's important that their members and tactics remain secret. This is essential when performing covert investigations, where they must catch confessions by secret surveillance equipment. The number of cases they had a hand in, and the exact method of their operations are confidential, so to be able to write anything, I had to run it by my mentor to insure that I had not given any forbidden information. However I was able to remedy this problem by focusing on their funding, and finding what problems had stemmed from that. It turns out, that the lack of funding they received was impacting the whole of their performance. Even though my mentor says that the job is going to get done with or without the money, he also told me that their job becomes much more easier, and they can get more of it done with a higher budget.

4. One of the two most significant sources of information I received was my mentor and their team. Working with them gave me the idea of what could be accomplished with more funding. even if their budget was doubled, they wouldn't even be taking more than a ten thousandth of a percent, and could fund double the employees and purchase higher grade equipment, and training. It would also provide security and benefits for it's seniority who had started to lose faith in the Department's system. 
The next great source I had was that of private investigators who posted laws and methodology online, or published it in articles. These investigators had posted entire papers on how the law thinks, what the technicalities, or loophole are, in a language for civilians and officers to understand. Using these articles, I was able to learn the law, and the backwards ways it can be used, and how the Sheriff's Department's hiring process is hurting it's seniority. 
A published source that helped me come to my best answer was the case studies provided by Guidance Software, the company has provided it's software to multiple law enforcement agencies, including the Los Angeles  Sheriff's Department, and my mentor has used the companies multiple programs several times. While the Department has since moved on to different programs, Guidance has been updating their service, and increased their customer base, and hopefully, the department will see how wise an investment into their products will be for the Special Investigation Unit.
A source that started all my research and pointed me where roughly where to look was provided by the Alameda County District Attorney, who showed the contribution that recordings made to solving cases and gathering evidence. The source provided information about multiple cases that involved the use of covert recordings that were gathered from prison visits and interviews. It also showed the laws that the detectives faced and followed when gathering this information, how they couldn't record attorney conversations without a warrant, or how they could get prisoners implied consent, and how to separate it from explicit consent. overall the source was a huge start for me to learn what to start with in terms of research and rough answers.