Tips for Smart Cops Series
Matters to be recorded in Police Notebooks

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1. An officer shall record in his notebook sufficient details about the nature of the actual overtime work undertaken, as well as the time and duration of the overtime work.

2. When an officer is called upon to handle an incident, no matter it is exercising police authority or not, he is required to record the full details of the incident in his notebook.

3. When a found property comes into the possession of an officer during the course of his duty, the officer shall record details of the found property in his notebook and, where appropriate, request the person from whom he obtained the property to certify that the description of the property entered in his notebook is correct.

4. If the officer in (3) subsequently located the rightful owner of the found property before returning to station, he should record details of the property in his notebook and then request the owner to certify correctness of the entry by appending his signature thereto.

5. After an arrest action has been taken, an officer should record particulars of the arrested person, the circumstances leading to the arrest, date, time and location of the arrest, and, if appropriate, justification for the use of handcuffs and their subsequent removal.

6. After an officer has taken a statement from a witness, the statement should be recorded in a Pol 154. The officer taking the statement needs only to record in his notebook the date, time and place the statement is taken, as well as the name of the witness.

7. An officer should not write over or between lines, or make any entry to render the records in his notebook illegible.

(This column is contributed by the Complaints and Internal Investigations Branch)