DNA and Property Crime Scene Investigation

Forensic Evidence and Law Enforcement

David Makin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317522751
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: Criminal Law
• Index: Law

Traditionally, forensic investigation has not been fully utilized in the investigation of property crime. This ground-breaking book examines the experiences of patrol officers, command staff, detectives, and chiefs as they navigate the expectations of forensic evidence in criminal cases, specifically property crimes cases. DNA and Property Crime Scene Investigation looks at the current state of forensic technology and, using interviews with police officers, command staff, forensic technicians, and prosecutors, elucidates who is doing the work of forensic investigation. It explores how better training can decrease backlogs in forensic evidence processing and prevent mishandling of crucial evidence. Concluding with a police chief's perspective on the approach, DNA and Property Crime Scene Investigation provides insight into an emerging and important approach to property crime scene investigation.

Key Features

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• Provides practical information on implementing forensic investigation for property crimes

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• Examines the current state of forensic technology and points to future trends

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• Includes a police chief's perspective on the forensic approach to investigating property crimes

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• Utilizes interviews with professionals in the field to demonstrate the benefits of the approach

CHAPTER 1

A Series of Questions

A BRIEF HISTORY

WHERE IT STARTED

THE BROADER AIM

WHY PROPERTY CRIME SCENES?

THE STUDY

Interviews

National Survey

STRUCTURING A THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL ANALYSIS

The costs are there, really you can never really get away from the costs but I believe it is important and if there is evidence, our task is to collect it.

Police Chief

While unorthodox, I start this book with a series of questions. What if ∼250,000 criminal cases existed where forensic evidence was present but remained uncollected? The cost of this crime nationally exceeded 14 billion dollars. However, what if processing evidence could improve, on average, an agency’s identification rates, arrest rates, and conviction rates by twofold? What reasons, rationalizations, or, potentially, excuses would be offered? What if the costs could be offset? What reasons exist for ignoring evidence? What if the costs still presented an issue, but still some agencies vigorously aimed for high volume processing? What explanations and what insight would those stakeholders offer for continuing to analyze this evidence?

The key to this puzzle of questions is to narrow the unit of focus, and transition the historical lens on forensic technology to the individual officer level. To understand the connection between officer and forensic technology is to gain an accurate understanding of the current state of forensic technology. A skeptical reader has likely remarked, “Those cases receive the lowest priority,” and this book does not challenge that claim. Instead, we must reflect on why, despite knowledge of the benefits of expanded processing, these cases still receive limited forensic treatment. Why, despite three decades of research within forensic technology, have few peered into the black box of forensic evidence practice?

This book is about social, organizational, and individual change. Specifically, how technology through a forensic evidence lens, has come to influence the police service. It highlights the experiences of patrol officers, command staff, detectives, and chiefs who navigate the expectations of forensics and the forensic technicians who support them. As the investigative continuum exceeds police officers and forensic technicians, I include interviews with prosecutors to understand the influence this technological innovation has had on criminal investigations. The objective of this book introduces the relationship between the investigative process and forensic technology, using property crime scene evidence as a narrowing frame. An analysis of forensic technology offers insight into the social construction of this technology that has placed high value on the use of forensic technology—if only in limited application (that is high-level crime).

The broader objective of this book is to explore how technology has come to shape organizations and individuals. As a book on forensic technology, this book addresses many similar topics covered within other books. However, this book departs from the norm by examining technology beyond the abstract. Technology influences people and therefore it is important to highlight the experiences of those who use this technology, to place them at the center of the analysis. Exploring the forensic experiences, attitudes, and views of those involved in the investigative process allows for both a practical and theoretical analysis into the current state of forensic technology within modern police services.

A BRIEF HISTORY

The history of forensic technology has long been a core feature of modern policing, institutionalized just over a century ago in American policing by August Vollmer. However, it was not until the Crime Commission met that a systematic examination into technology and policing would occur. In 1967, the Crime Commission would offer several commonsense recommendations that would introduce technology to address the most routine of police practices. Formed as a response to the likely criticism that President Johnson would have received for the increase in crime, this science and technology commission sought to understand how technology could aid police. While the commission accepted that technology was not a cure to crime, it was the first foray into the study of technology and its influence on the criminal justice system, specifically police organizations.

Since this report, scholars have tried to understand the role of technology within the criminal justice system. Early research by Anderson (1967) and Wolfe (1967) explored the inner workings of the Crime Commission offering unique perspectives for understanding technology within the organizational context and not merely applied to solve crime. As each warned, we must not forget how advanced technology may not overcome low-tech determination (in referencing the Vietnam War). Technology in this capacity is not the solution; rather it is but a part of the solution.

With each decade, new research explored emerging technology but still largely unexamined was the influence technology had on the organization, the officers, or society. In the 1990s, research emerged examining information technology; specifically the work of Postman (1992) and Manning (1992), offering that information technology had come to alter the structural, symbolic, and social organization of police. Nearly a decade later, Chan (2001) would offer insight into this area, research that has influenced this work and has come to benefit both academic and practitioner.

The research in the 1990s introduced researchers and practitioners to the complex relationship between technology and the police organization. While a small subunit of focus within the field of criminal justice research, scholars have tried to understand how technology has shaped police practice. Early research was theoretical, highlighting the likely benefits of recent technology developments. As technology integrated into the police organization, researchers focused on key measurements (effectiveness and efficiency). This research proved valuable, but only across the theoretical and the quantitative measures of effectiveness that developed. Something was missing. Specifically, missing from this conversation was ethnographic and strong mixed-method research approaches introducing the practitioners to add their experiences to the history that is police technology.

While the state of forensic technology has been a focus of research, largely missing was the influence on the individual officer. Despite improvements in our overall knowledge on forensic technology and practice, details on the evidence backlog, and the current state of technology developments, largely unexamined has been the individual officer level. Without this perspective, it is difficult to provide answers to the complex questions involving forensic technology. For example, how and in what ways have police practices changed in the last decade? What role do first responders or detectives have in forensic collection? What knowledge do they have, what training have they received, what influences their decision to collect? Now, we have answers to some of the questions. However, many answers concern only the collection and analysis for compulsory processing of sexual assault incidents and homicides, crimes with clearly described protocol. What we lack is an understanding of decision-making at the lowest forensic level, specifically property crime scenes. This book provides answers to these questions. Sharing officer experiences affords the unique opportunity to understand how forensic technology has come to influence the daily tasking of officers and how these taskings have come to influence the use of forensic technology.

WHERE IT STARTED

As with any intellectual effort, some pinnacle experience captivates an interest, fostering the pursuit of understanding the complexity and nuances for a given topic. My fascination with technology, specifically police technology, emerged one fateful morning when walking to my car to drive to my university; I discovered my car was missing the stereo. I called the police to report the incident, something I had never previously needed to do, and in what could not have been an hour later, a patrol car arrived. Having spent a decade studying policing, I realize how uncommon was my experience but more importantly, that event and what occurred influenced my primary field ofstudy.

When the officer arrived, he began writing down the model of the car and details of the stereo; he inquired if I had locked the doors and what other valuables I noted as missing. There were several valuable items, mostly reflecting various criminal justice and statistics books, but they remained untouched, the only missing item being the stereo in the empty dash of a Dodge Neon. As the officer walked around the car writing down the details, I inquired into how likely it was that they would recover my stereo. Having some familiarity with the criminal justice system, I knew the answer, but the victim in me wanted my stereo back. The answer came quickly and the response “Rather unlikely.”

In what was nearly 30 minutes, the officer provided suggestions on how I could prevent this in the future. He expressed that because of the neighborhood, I needed to be more cautious. In addition, he provided tips that I should park closer to my home and should install a car alarm (something I did that first weekend). However, when I inquired about potential fingerprints on the windows, the potential for genetic evidence in the car, the officer’s response was “We don’t do that.” I never asked why, something I deeply regret. However, that statement came to influence and foster a research agenda including a national study on the influence of technology on police practice, the focus of this book.

Thinking back on the statement from the officer, the theoretical interpretation would reflect the following:

1. The officer could have lacked the specific knowledge (training).

2. The agency lacked the technological capacity (resources) or the officer was unable to perform the collection (a combination of the former).

3. The officer was unwilling to use the resource, with the latter an expression of apathy.

In one of the first explorations into police technology, Manning (1992) came to offer that technology rarely transforms an agency; technology is merely adapted to reproduce traditional police practice. Technology did not have the capacity to transform police practice; it was a tool, one reserved to solve specific crime problems and its ability to aid all levels of the organization were rarely achieved.

THE BROADER AIM

Human history contains examples of how technology has come to shape the world around us. Technology has the capacity, and the proven ability, to alter the social world in which we live. Technology intertwines the way we interact and the methods by which we gain knowledge. The continued integration of technology into the fabric of life has had a deep impact on culture, politics, economics, and communication. Technology growth across all sectors of society, from manufacturing, to media, from communications to organizations, alters the world. However, this marked statement on technology does not reduce or ignore the potential effects that this integration has had on, society or, by extension, organizations. Emerging new crime, new costs, and new ways to control, for all the benefits there are unintended results.

Within the police service, we have witnessed a “technological arms race,” one reflecting technology gain to display technological modernity. The increasing organizational and personal pressure to display technological modernity is ever-present. At a forensic level, gaining the personnel and resources necessary to collect and process forensic evidence displays achieving a threshold of technology professionalism, a threshold easily achieved. However difficult is the effective and efficient use of that technological professionalism, which is to say, gaining the technology is but a matter of costs, making use of that technology involves a different set of issues.

WHY PROPERTY CRIME SCENES?

The decision to use property crime scenes as a framing lens reflected the lack of knowledge at this level. Clear protocol exists for violent crimes, including sexual assault and homicides. However, understanding influences on those within the investigative continuum needs focus on crime scenes that contain forensic evidence but lack standard operating procedure (SOP). The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) study on property crime scene evidence detailed clear benefits expansion provided. However, limited research existed explain...