Nicola Scerbo
The various news events constantly brought to the attention of the civil community blatantly highlight the countless management difficulties in the normal investigative activity of investigators, during the exercise of prevention, contrast and repression of criminal phenomena. What, at first instance, might appear to the less experienced and non-experts to be elementary errors or oversights, during the performance of delicate operations of acquisition of evidentiary material, in reality, to a technical and attentive eye, demonstrate a fundamental flaw in the methodological approach, probably deriving from a poor culture of the meticulous process of ascertaining the most disparate elements, based mainly on the scientific method, through a careful selection of relevant contents and the necessary discarding of the superfluous. The risk, faced with the complexity of real-life phenomena, is the possibility of neglecting the right degree of attention to details that, although apparently irrelevant, determine, in their divergent whole, essential impulses for the articulation and structuring of the cognitive process. The right balance in the approach of professionals and a wise introjection of specialised intellectual capacities capable of adequately intercepting the progress of technology could determine enormous changes in the quality and results of investigative activities aimed at improving peaceful coexistence in the democratic state, without undermining or compromising legitimate trust in the competent authorities and respect for fundamental values and personality. Drawing on practical experience and proposing theoretical and practical improvements to investigative approaches – particularly with regard to the use of new technologies – this study aims to guide practitioners towards the application of scientific and rational methods, thereby addressing critical issues and structural weaknesses within the law enforcement system.