Major shifts across the information technology landscape in the past decades have introduced a paradigm shift in the criminal justice system. As protectors of justice, professionals across the criminal justice system often face difficulties in the presentation of evidence; which is a key requirement in a successful conviction and closure. Yet the nature of crime continues to change as criminals and potential criminals adopt ways to defeat the course of justice by eliminating evidence or hiding a linkage to the commission of a crime.
While digital evidence exploitation remains a new tool within law enforcement and criminal justice in general, it is prudent to mention that its acceptance within criminal justice system as admissible in the prosecution of criminals has had a large effect in the maintenance of justice within society. In previous times, certain criminal cases went unattended despite their occurrence. Developments such as these often left many victims of crimes living with the burden of the atrocities committed to them while the perpetrators walked scot free.
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There is a general consensus across criminal justice discourse that such kinds of occurrences have been significantly reduced primarily due to the effects of digital evidence as an important facet of prosecution. Contextually, the surge of technological devices within the population in response to the increase in demand due to low prices and partly affordability of components such as the internet has made collection and analysis of evidence easier due to the interconnectedness and pervasive nature of information technology.
Considering the trajectory currently taken by most criminal justice systems globally including the International Criminal Court in recognizing digital evidence as admissible, there has been a significant rise in the number of criminal convictions, with the number expected to rise as the number of technological devices in the market increases.
Also, there is a need to point that even though physical evidence has been instrumental in most cases, challenges in proper determination of the exact place a suspect was before the crime under investigation, the interaction pattern in the sense of who the suspect lastly communicated with and other elements common across crime causation have been frequent. Thus, proving guilt in such cases has been difficult, more so, given the complexities involving procurement of witnesses to testify in a court of law and establishing the authenticity of witness testimony in cases with conflicting interests.
These complexities usually require a deeper collection and analysis of a case for a successful conviction, a feat otherwise difficult to attain in the absence of including digital evidence as part of information collection and analysis. In comparison to physical evidence, which is susceptible to contamination, cases of such forms of disruption of justice are rare in digital evidence. Even more important is that it is easier to detect contamination of digital evidence since information technology experts are regarded as friends of the court in cases involving their expertise.
In conclusion, there is safety in stating that while digital evidence remains a new tool within the criminal justice system, it has introduced a considerable shift in the maintenance of justice due to the positive effects it has generated, especially in comparison to physical evidence considering the expansive nature of its scope.
