Chapter 12 - Crime Scene Characteristics

Abstract

Crime-scene analysis (CSA) and criminal-profiling methods depend upon a host of different variables that must be gathered, weighed, and interpreted. Chief among these are the characteristics evident in the crime scene. Crime-scene characteristics are the features of a scene as evidenced by offender behavior related to decisions about the victim and the offense, in accordance with their contextual meaning. They may be established by a thorough crime reconstruction, the use of forensic victimology, and a timeline of known offense-related behaviors. It is an interpretive-classification stage of crime-scene investigation subsequent to crime-reconstruction efforts. It is intended to provide a language for categorizing, explaining, and comparing victim and offender behavior that has been established by the reconstruction interpretations that are available. Each crime scene is distinct from all others by virtue of environmental influences, victim–offender disposition, victim–offender interaction, the physical evidence left behind, and whether that evidence is ultimately discovered and recovered. Furthermore, not all crime-scene characteristics will be known in every case; some will not be discoverable from the available evidence. Crime-scene characteristics may be compiled for criminological research purposes as part of idiographic and nomothetic study, or they can be used to help answer investigative and forensic questions, including those related to case-linkage efforts.