Essay Example on Crime Scene Investigation: Uncovering Hidden Evidence

Introduction

A crime scene is a location containing physical or material evidence associated with a crime (Bulbul et al, 2013). It is also a place where a crime took place or a site that provides evidence of the crime. A crime scene is a source of any sort of evidence, including buildings, vehicles, and objects found in the crime scene location, or a human body (Bulbul et al, 2013). However, in many instances, a crime scene may evolve to another place, depending on the nature of the crime. For example, a person who is murdered in one location is found in another area that may cause a crime scene to cover more than one site.

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Crime Scene Investigation

A crime scene investigation, therefore, is the process of securing, assessing, and documenting a crime scene location. This process is done through the identification of crime-related material, both physical and otherwise (Wang et al., 2018). Once a crime scene has been identified, police will move in and secure the area where the most visible evidence is located. This action protects the core evidence from being damaged by onlookers and other elements by accessing the crime scene (Wang et al., 2018). After the core evidence is secured, the police then enlarge the area to create a safe space to allow more room in case there is a need to assess the area for more evidence

The crime investigation unit's primary purpose in a crime scene is to collect the evidence and identify the relationship between different samples of evidence during storage. In a crime committed in Madrid, the perpetrator understood that the police would secure the core area before creating a safe area, so he took the piece of crucial evidence that would be used to identify the victim (Wang et al., 2018). After securing the crime scene, detectives began to look for the victim's fingers and teeth as they had been removed along with the victim's wallet and identity card. When the detectives were searching for the victim's identifications, the perpetrator had placed them in an area just outside the crime in a jar of acid to allow for them to dissolve.

In the original crime scene, the core area had been thoroughly searched and documented, but nothing was found. As the detectives were expanding the scene of the crime, they noticed a few drops of blood a few meters outside the original crime scene (Mike et al., 2017). They secured the area by increasing their crime scene only to find most of the evidence they were looking for dissolved in a jar.

Relationship and Evidence

During a crime scene investigation, different samples of evidence are sorted and stored differently. Evidence collected from a stranger is investigated for the overlapping DNA and how the evidence was transferred from one stranger to another. However, this is different for domestic cases due to the various possibilities of the same type of evidence in multiple places. The crime scene investigation unit identifies and separates the kinds of evidence found on the scene (Mike et al., 2017). After the evidence has been collected and isolated, it was then classified to determine how and when it was left on the scene. The process helps the detectives to sort through various types of repetitive evidence samples like fingerprints and bodily fluids from the couple. Besides, it gives detectives enough time to investigate which evidence sample is related to the crime in question and which one is not.

In a domestic case, evidence like bodily fluids and DNA samples can be lost easily because of the multitudes of samples available, mainly if the crime occurred in the couple's house (Bulbul et al, 2013). If the crime scene is deemed to have occurred elsewhere, the detectives separate the evidence using location criteria in addition to other methods. Using this method ensures that the detectives have a chance at identifying the evidence related to the particular crime they are investigating.

In forensic science, the difference between classification and individualization depends on the amount of detail provided about the evidence. For example, a police person identifies a car involved in a crime scene as a blue Camaro; in this case, the officer has only classified the vehicle (Wang et al., 2018). Individualization, however, is when an officer states that he has determined that the hair sample collected from the scene was from the middle-aged Caucasian man. In this case, the evidence admits more details. However, in these two cases, the description of the car as it was not detailed is termed as a universal individualization. In contrast, local individualization perceives that the description involved more distinctions of the object in question, such as the case of the hair sample. However, in a crime scene investigation, all identification are classifications.

In a crime scene, detectives use among many tools, the repetitiveness of evidence samples to analyze the crime scene. In a domestic case, for example, if a specific set of fingerprints is found in one or more places multiple times, it may lead detectives to think that the individuals visit that place many times (Wang et al., 2018). Statistical reoccurrence of a single piece of evidence can be used to relate an individualized evidence sample to a location statistically. When looking for a repeat offender, a detective cross-checks the new evidence with previously collected samples from the same offender to prove or dismiss their case. The relationship between individualization and statistics is that once a piece of evidence has been evidence, statistics help to identify the same sample in multiple locations.

Summary

In crime scene investigations, maintaining the integrity of the evidence is important. When a crime is identified, one of the most important steps is to preserve the evidence. This is done to protect the insights and clues that the evidence provides to help detectives to identify perpetrators, convict repeat offenders, and sometimes acquit those who are falsely accused(Bulbul et al, 2013). However, in some scenarios, crime scenes span a large area, which prevents detectives from finding crucial evidence, especially when it has been moved intentionally (Wang et al., 2018). To control loss of evidence, detectives the evidence they already have to identify patterns or likely places the offender can place the evidence. Identifying deliberately misplaced proof is done by understanding the relationship between the perpetrator and the victim.

During the process of collecting evidence, the relationships between the victim and the perpetrator are essential. In many cases, strangers with no ties tend to have minimal samples on them in any crime scene. In domestic situations, however, a multiplicity of the same type of evidence is the most significant problem detectives have to deal with, classifications, and individualization of multiple sets of evidence samples to identify patterns in the evidence collected (Wang et al., 2018). After identifying a recurrent pattern, detectives use statistics to relate different evidence samples to the crime scene to the relationship between the samples and the crime in question.

References

Bulbul, H. I., Yavuzcan, H. G., & Ozel, M. (2013). Digital forensics: an analytical crime scene procedure model (ACSPM). Forensic science international, 233(1-3), 244-256. DOI: 10.1016/j.forsciint.2013.09.007

Mike G, W. J., & Berger, C. E. (2017). Crime scene investigation, archaeology and taphonomy: reconstructing activities at crime scenes. Taphonomy of Human Remains: Forensic Analysis of the Dead and the Depositional Environment: Forensic Analysis of the Dead and the Depositional Environment, 476-494. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118953358.ch36

Wang, S., Wang, X., Ye, P., Yuan, Y., Liu, S., & Wang, F. Y. (2018). Parallel crime scene analysis based on ACP approach. IEEE Transactions on Computational Social Systems, 5(1), 244-255. doi: 10.1109/TCSS.2017.2782008