Introduction
Crime Scene Investigation (CSI) forms a crucial part of evidence gathering when building criminal cases. According to Hess, Orthmann, and Cho (2016), the crime scene, as component of investigation, play an important part as an accessory for establishing evidence through making available clues and other material in as part of the evidence in building of cases. CSI aided by science and technology continues to form a crucial part of law enforcement. As a core area in investigations, the principle that it is impossible for a criminal to exit a crime scene without leaving sufficient evidence that can be used to trace them has important in explaining the need for CSI (Kloosterman et al., 2015). Today, the crime scene is among the highly safeguarded components of investigation in any crime. Solving a criminal case has led to the growth in need for forensics. Law enforcement agencies continue to invest in forensics as the need to fighting crime moves from being legally-based to science-oriented (Brown, 2015). Forensic scientists form part of the elite teams that conduct forensic investigations on crime scenes and in several jurisdictions referred to as crime scene investigators. The paper discusses the basic crime scene investigation as a critical aspect of law enforcement.
Evidence and Crime Scene Management
Evidence and Crime Scene management remain aligned to the needs for integrating science and technology in the investigation through forensic evidence. The need for law enforcement agencies to effectively equip their personnel with appropriate skill sets and equipment for investigations has made crime scene management, as well as evidence management, be considered as important (Kloosterman et al., 2015). CSI relies on evidence accuracy that can only be attained through effective management strategies that would protect and preserve all information retrieved from any scene of the crime. In managing crime scenes, it remains important that investigators observe several processes akin to ensuring that the scene remains secure from contamination and that all details from the crime scene are collected for purposes of reference (Brown, 2015). Key to obtaining comprehensive and reliable evidence from a crime scene, it is imperative that investigators exercise processes such as note-taking while at the scene, secure the scene of the crime, effectively manage all evidence material, and record events as based on their occurrences.
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According to Hess, Orthmann, and Cho (2016), detailing processes are important in ensuring that the investigators can relate the events of the crime to other corroborating evidence sources such as witness statements. The crime scene as a component of evidence remains integral in court proceedings and its importance anchors on the justice system principle that requires the prosecutor, in any case, to prove a case beyond any doubt. The processes entailed in CSI require that investigators observe several principles of the investigation while integrating science and technology as part of the evidence-gathering process (Brown, 2015). The resulting information from such an exercise should, however, be considered comprehensive to have them admissible as part of the evidence in courts of law. Managing crime scene allows investigators to apply different skills in their investigations. The skill sets aid in different processes as a way to enhance and build on the required threshold for evidence. The ability of law enforcement officers to articulately collect and preserve material from the crime scene for analysis purposes is an important aspect of solving the crime.
Note Taking
Note-taking forms a basic component of CSI. According to Isafiade and Bagula (2016) evidence retrieval from crime scenes anchors primarily on the ability of investigators to contextualize the events that preceded the acts of criminality. Note-taking helps with the required documentation that captures several aspects including primary witness statements, as well as the investigator's immediate assessment of the scene at the point of the visit (Kloosterman et al., 2015). Note-taking serves as the primary recording tool for investigators with several jurisdictions terming investigators on-site notes as admissible pieces of evidence in extreme circumstances. Investigators notes have been regarded as “circumstantial assurance of truthfulness” and used as documentation to corroborate other testimonials in the prosecution (Hess, Orthmann, & Cho, 2016). During the CSI process, note-taking holds a key part in providing credibility to other evidence and material retrieved from the scene. Investigations have to hence align to the notes as s leading point of inference.
Forensic accounts cannot be perceived to be representative of the events that transpired at a crime scene when they are not corroborated by the investigators' notes while at the scene of incidence. According to Kloosterman et al. (2015) articulate and representative notes act as an overview of the scene because they are used to establish a chronology in relation to the time investigators arrived. As an investigator, mental map, notes from crime scenes are used to inform several decisions that include warrants of arrests, suspects, categorization of witnesses and the duration a case might take to solve. Note-taking requires a critical and open-minded approach in how investigators handle the dynamic and unpredictable nature of the events that transpire in all cases of crime (Hess, Orthmann, & Cho, 2016). The ability to adapt and identify the facts under which investigations are conducted should play an important role in guaranteeing safety to property and protection of life. Investigators, therefore, have the responsibility for ensuring that their notes are representative of the facts and the context of the crime.
Note-taking, however, experiences challenges such as the factor of time and how it influences the different aspects of the investigation. Development of a case has a time factor attributed to them that makes it important that investigators have all their documentation in place before they can leave the crime scene (Kloosterman et al., 2015). Note-taking, therefore, allows investigators to document helpful information for purposes of arresting human memory of the events as they happened. Failure to address documentation immediately can lead to distortion of facts as time elapses and tampers with judgment and memory of the witnesses as well as the investigators. Investigators, therefore, have to consistently take on notes of events based on periods of how they happened to help with the memory during the presentation. Kloosterman et al. (2015) acknowledges that note-taking processes should always remain associated with a comprehensive casting in of all facts and events as they happened. The chronological details are best covered in a protracted timeframe that allows them to coincide with the way the events happened.
Maintaining Crime Scene Integrity
Securing the crime scene forms an integral aspect of CSI. The needs to adequately manage scenes of crime anchors on several factors that include keeping scenes from being contaminated before all necessary evidence material are retrieved (Carter & Carter, 2016). Securing a crime scene involves several issues that include setting up perimeters, scene lockdown, establishing security, and path of contamination (Brown, 2015). The responsibility of the first officers on any site of crime remains on ensuring that they establish a protocol that would ensure that the crime scene is on lockdown from any form of contamination. Securing a scene of crime calls on investigators to appropriately document and retrieve all relevant material that can then form part of the strategic investigation (Hess, Orthmann, & Cho, 2016). Securing crime scene integrity remains a dynamic act of CSI based on the state of the scene at the time law enforcement officers and investigators arrived. Active crime scene where civilians and other individuals are involved often has investigators prioritize safeguarding life and property safety over evidence (Kloosterman et al., 2015). That is different from inactive crime scenes where officers arrive after the crime had taken place and rely on the material left within the crime scene in creating their path of the crime. Scene’s state when the officers arrive on forms a crucial investigative dimension with a investigators actions confined to respond best to approaches that would aid their investigations while limiting the impact it has on the immediate population.
Securing crime scene evidence is a crucial principle considered by courts when evaluating prosecution evidence. Depending on the ability of the investigators to safeguard the evidence, presiding judges often deliberate to what degree it was possible to protect the evidence and whether such material remained admissible in a court for purposes of supporting a case (Kloosterman et al., 2015). Judges have in different jurisdictional rulings accepted evidence on a circumstantial basis as they remain representative of the context of the active crime scene. Such leverage is, however, subject to the response approach applicable to the investigative officers at their arrival at the scene. In the event the investigators arrive on an active scene of the crime and in effort to protecting life or property act carelessly of the primary evidence, the choice of a tactical approach can be viewed as allowable in courts and the bench dismisses the need for crime scene evidence (Hess, Orthmann, & Cho, 2016). However, the principles remain different when it comes to securing evidence in inactive crime scenes. The courts often view it compulsively for investigators to prioritize evidence and provide a comprehensive account of the crime scene when they arrive (Isafiade & Bagula, 2016). Such evidence is considered important in forming grounds for strategic investigative approach. Unlike tactical response approach, the strategic investigative approach allows investigators to use crime scene evidence as to the primary leading points for tracing and bringing to book the perpetrators of the crime (Brown, 2015). As evidence, all material collected from a crime scene, is subjected to crucial analysis in an attempt to reconstruct the motive and identify suspects of the case. Strategic investigative approach aided by other sources of information such as witness testimonies can be used as a crucial pointer in the right direction when it comes to forming the right frameworks in deciding any case.
Safeguarding crime scenes from access either by the public or unauthorized persons is another strategy to ensuring that the integrity of the scene remains observed. The need to objectively safeguard crime scenes from contamination requires that they become safeguarded through lockdowns or other restrictive approaches (Carter & Carter, 2016). As a strategic investigative approach, locking down crime scenes always allows the first responders and the witnesses’ time to recount the events that took place in during the crime (Kloosterman et al., 2015). Crime scene lockdowns are always reliable in ensuring that activities and individuals who could contaminate the crime scene are restricted from the scene for purposes of obtaining forensic details that form a crucial component in the evidence locker rooms. Lockdowns are always aided by the act of raising perimeter barriers to isolate the scene from any forms of activities.
Investigating officers through first responders and forensic analysts often work closely to ensuring that the integrity of the crime scenes is regarded as a priority. After securing the scene and limiting activities from the active scene of the crime, it remains imperative that security is provided for the scene. Courts and law enforcement officers often assign security officers to crime scenes to regulate access of individuals into the scene as a precautionary measure for controlled access (Kloosterman et al., 2015). Assigned officers to crime scene security are always accountable for recording every visit through crime scene security logs that work towards maintaining a record on who access the site and their roles in the scene of incidence (Hess, Orthmann, & Cho, 2016). Crime scene security logs like other documents in the investigation process are important in identifying and allowing the forensic teams to segregate any contamination pathways as they help in establishing the chronology of events that might have in one way or another been part of the crime.
Evidence Management
Crime scene investigations are always channeled towards a single goal, obtaining evidence that can be corroborated to build a case that leads to the successful prosecution of a crime. Evidence management focuses on contamination and how effectively investigators can retrieve leading information from a crime scene as part of the strategic investigative approach of prosecution (Carter & Carter, 2016). Crime scenes are considered as the nexus points from where studies can originate to systematically help prosecute the circumstantial indicators that otherwise would require a keen understanding of events that preceded the crime. Crime in itself remains complex, which prompts the need to exhaustively find and analyze the existing data for purposes of building a prosecution case (Kloosterman et al., 2015). Evidence management entails the processes of collecting, analyzing, preserving all evidence retrieved from the crime scene. Different pieces of evidence collected from crime scenes require diverse approaches in their analysis. It is at this instance when evidence management principles set in to help articulately offer guidance for investigators playing a part in contamination of the evidence.
The difference in evidence handling procedures calls on investigating agencies to employ several experts in evidence management. The dynamism of crime has ensured that various scenes call on different experts to help with the process of examination and analysis of the evidence material. If the crime scene has to be dusted of hair, fingerprint and, in some cases, blood samples investigators have to employ the technical aspects of forensic analysts (Isafiade & Bagula, 2016). Forensic analysts have the capacity and are in a position of offering inferences from the evidence material based on spatial analysis and relationships as transferred through the data retrieved from forensic samples (Kloosterman et al., 2015). Physical evidence, on the contrary, is often analyzed based on circumstantial understanding. Effective evidence management allows investigators to connect through the different timelines and relationships to construct motive, means, and opportunity that informed the crime. Managing to reconstruct such critical facts of a crime from the retrieved evidence makes it possible for both investigators to pursue criminals with sufficient evidence that warrant successful prosecution.
Evidence management, however, has a single objective, addressing the issue of evidence contamination. Preventing contamination calls on investigators to apply several models as a way of ensuring that they remain uncompromised when it comes to relying on their crime scene generated evidence (Kloosterman et al., 2015). According to Carter and Carter (2016) it is important to generate reliable evidence for purposes of CSI, it remains imperative that interference is minimized by the responders to the scene of crime at the tactical investigative response, suspects are prevented from accessing any material regarded as evidence, evidence materials are rid of wastes, and the crime scenes are protected from adverse weather such as rain and snow. Investigators charged with evidence and crime scene security are expected to remain conversant with procedures that can help in limiting any contaminants from reaching the evidence.
Applicability of CSI in Law Enforcement
Technology has driven crime to an increasingly complex level with criminals resorting to new innovative ways of crime in terms of payments, financial crime, and planning to execution of their acts. Law enforcement agencies have been forced to rely on effective forensic investigation models as a means of ensuring that they can remain ahead in tackling crime (Hess, Orthmann, & Cho, 2016). Investing in information technology for purposes of tackling crime has ensured that several law enforcement agencies train their personnel in cyber security as a means to allow them to stay objective in tackling cybercrime (Brown, 2015). Application of CSI, however, continues to draw some professionals that include data analysts, IT technicians, psychologists, and pathologists.
Today, courts in various legal jurisdictions prioritize evidence-based prosecution as opposed to witnesses terming them reliable especially when corroborated with other evidence material. CSI continues to rely on forensics for purposes of collection, processing, and evaluation of evidence (Kloosterman et al., 2015). Prosecutors have to build their cases on comprehensive supporting evidence, preferably from crime scene forensic results. According to Brown (2015), obtaining reliable evidence from a crime scene would require appropriate management of the scene of the crime to allow investigators adequate time in the interrogation of information retrieved from the crime scene. The ideal situation helps in ensuring that individuals receive the necessary training necessary for the prosecution of any criminal cases in the investigation processes.
Integration of CSI in Law Enforcement
CSI involves several scientific techniques integrated to help investigators in finding comprehensive evidence necessary for solving criminal cases. CSI requires investigators and involved law enforcers to hold particular skill sets to allow them effectively maneuver them through various components of material to be used in forensic stages of their investigations (Brown, 2015). The need for equipment and skillsets are deemed necessary for purposes of evidence gathering during the investigations. Law enforcers are expected to build cases on crime scene evidence that corroborate witness testimonies from the same crime.
CSI plays an important role as a foundation in solving any case through evidence collected from the scene either in forms of physical exhibits, scene photographs, and other forensics such as fingerprint results (Kloosterman et al., 2015). Efficient CSI relies on two aspects of investigation: evidence management and the scene of crime management. The objective of any crime scene management or evidence management remains aligned to the need for offering protection of the scenes, collection, submission, and preservation of any material retrieved from scenes of crime (Hess, Orthmann, & Cho, 2016). The different stages require that law enforcers remain deliberate in their actions for purposes of safeguarding the existing material. A lapse in the mandate of the CSIs has an enormous risk on the evidence integrity through contamination and apparent loss of information that would have been important for building a case profile.
Crime scene investigations hence require a significant level of comprehension, especially on handling detail for purposes of constructing the context and motives of any crime (Kloosterman et al., 2015). Investigators have the responsibility of ensuring that they cover the gaps in evidence through staging a comprehensive system in which information processing allows for the investigation allows the investigators to cover the gaps in evidence.
Conclusion
Crime Scene Investigation is a complex process that requires adequate resources if it is to be effectively implemented within the law enforcement structure. Despite the challenges that relate to the extensive demands of CSI, its effective use has continued to be embraced across various jurisdictions proving to offer an outright solution to solving the crime. The integration of technology into CSI is an area that is taking the fast pace and attracting different talents to law enforcement based on the skill sets required in forensics and other analytic aspects of CSI. Governments and other security agencies are therefore advised to increase their investment in the CSI technology to attract talent into law enforcement as well as increase the capacity of justice systems to tackle crime.
References
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Carter, D. L., & Carter, J. G. (2016). Effective police homicide investigations: Evidence from seven cities with high clearance rates. Homicide Studies , 20 (2), 150-176.
Hess, K. M., Orthmann, C. H., & Cho, H. L. (2016). Criminal investigation . Cengage learning.
Isafiade, O. E., & Bagula, A. B. (Eds.). (2016). Data mining trends and applications in criminal science and investigations . IGI Global.
Kloosterman, A., Mapes, A., Geradts, Z., van Eijk, E., Koper, C., van den Berg, J., & van Asten, A. (2015). The interface between forensic science and technology: How technology could cause a paradigm shift in the role of forensic institutes in the criminal justice system. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences , 370 (1674), 20140264.
