Crime Scene Examination Research Articles

Is Crime Scene Examination science, and does it matter anyway?

This short piece aims to assess the kind of data collected by Crime Scene Examiners (CSEs), and to discuss whether this collection constitutes a scientific process. It also seeks to examine the balance of roles performed by the CSE, between data gatherer and investigator. The piece also aims to conclude on whether a clearer understanding of the structure of data collected by CSEs might be of some practical use in developing a greater understanding of the architecture of knowledge that forensic science as a whole relies upon. As a piece of work it is unapologetically theoretical in its perspective, and seeks to prompt further discussion regarding the structure of scientific knowledge, and any relevance this might have to its application in a forensic context. Ultimately, it seeks the inclusion of the processes of data gathering performed largely by CSEs within the wider processes of forensic science.

Questions and Answers: The Logic of Preliminary Fact Investigation

My paper considers the role of questions and answers in the inferential tasks of fact investigators (investigators such as police officers and crime scene examiners) prior to trial and indeed prior to arrest. My contention is that the reasoning processes of these investigators obey an internal, simple, successful, but dangerous, logic.

Identification of Drivers in Traffic Accidents and Determination of Passenger Position in a Vehicle by Finger Marks

The following paper aims to illustrate certain investigative activities in the forensic analysis and examination of the scene of traffic accidents. When a traffic accident occurs, the scene must be secured as soon as possible to enable professional and proper forensic investigation. Failure to secure the accident scene might result in losing or contaminating the traces, which makes it more difficult to prove or explain trace evidence in further procedure or even makes such evidence inadmissible. The topic is discussed from the viewpoint of crime scene examination, since analysing and investigating traffic accidents requires a great deal of expertise and attention of the investigators. Complex traffic accidents include feigned accidents, hit-and-run accidents as well as accidents in which the driver and passengers, dead or alive, need to be identified. In identifying the passengers, standard criminal investigation methods as well as police forensic and forensic medicine methods are followed. Such methods include confirming the identities with identity documents, other documents and vehicle ownership, fingerprints, biological traces, fibre traces, contact traces, traces of physical injuries on the driver and passengers, etc. According to the results obtained in fingerprint detection on human skin surfaces, this method can also be applied in confirming physical contact between the driver and the passengers in the accident, e.g. in the event of moving the victims and changing the scene of the accident. Key words: traffic accidents, accident analysis, driver's identity, passengers' position, finger marks, human skin

Crime Scene Examiners

Crime Scene Examiners