Entry Was Gained

Question

I a question about the following passive construction:

Entry was gained into the house.

I find the part "entry was gained" weird, because, according to dictionaries, the normal usage should be along the lines of:

They gained entry into the house.

But a google search showed that the passive construction is most common in police blotters. So, could it be that "entry was gained" is non-standard English that is only used in police reporting? If "entry was gained" is somehow standard English, then does that mean I could write the following passive construction for "give chase":

Chase was given to the suspect.

?

Answer 1

There are (at least) four reasons to use a passive construction.

One, because you don't know who or what performed the action. "Entry into the house was gained through the basement." Perhaps we don't know who broke into the house, we're still investigating. Of course you could use a vague subject, like "someone" or, in this case, "the burglar". But a passive is a valid alternative.

Two, you want to emphasize the action rather than the actor. "Great scientific discoveries were made during this period." The immediate point is not who made these discoveries, but simply that they were made.

Three, literary reasons, like getting a rhyme, or varying up sentence structure.

Four, to deliberately obscure or gloss over who performed the action. There's the classic politician's non-apology for outrageous and scandalous behavior: "Mistakes were made." Not, "I broke every promise I have ever made and betrayed my friends and family", but "Mistakes were made" -- I'm not even quite sure who made them.

Answer 2

One reason to use the passive voice is to be purposefully vague about who performed a particular action. This construction is probably more common in police blotters because the actors and their number in a crime under investigation are usually unknown.

Chase was given to the suspect.

As alephzero pointed out in the comments, the set phrase is "give chase" and "chase was given" isn't modern idiomatic English. There are some examples from the 1800s, but most modern instances seem to be related to the male name Chase, and not the sense of the example sentence. 'The suspect was pursued.' would be the more likely passive construction.

Similar passive voice constructions might be used by someone reporting an incident who wanted to be very formal and convey a sense of objectivity. Naming actors, like "I chased the boy" instead of "the suspect was pursued" makes things more personal and less "legal sounding" to some folks.