How to Document a Crime Scene Reading

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Chapter viii: Crime Scene Management

"Crime scene management, and evidence management as a critical office of that, must be learned and incorporated into the investigator'southward toolkit."

Law-breaking scene management skills are an extremely significant task component of investigation considering evidence that originates at the crime scene will provide a picture of events for the court to consider in its deliberations. That picture will be equanimous of witness testimony, crime scene photographs, physical exhibits, and the analysis of those exhibits, forth with the analysis of the crime scene itself. From this chapter, you will learn the task processes and protocols for several important issues in offense scene management. These include:

1. Note taking
2. Securing a criminal offence scene
3. Testify management
4. Scaling the investigation to the effect

Topic one: Note Taking

Although other documents will be created past the investigator to manage the crime scene, no other document will be equally important to the investigator as the notebook. The notebook is the investigator'southward personal reference for recording the investigation.

Many variations of police notebooks have emerged over the years. The court will sometimes even accept police notes that have been fabricated on a scrap of paper if that was the only paper bachelor at the time. However, beyond extreme circumstances, in operational investigations, the accepted parameters of a law notes and notebooks are:

• A book with a cover page that shows the investigators proper name, the date the notebook was started, and the date the notebook was concluded
• Sequential page numbers
• A bound booklet from which pages cannot exist torn without detection
• Lined pages that allow for corking scripting of notes
• Each entry into the notebook should showtime with a fourth dimension, engagement, and instance reference
• Bare spaces on pages should not be left between entries and, if a blank space is left, information technology should be filled with a unmarried line fatigued through the infinite or a diagonal line fatigued across a page or fractional page space
• Any errors made in the notebook should simply be crossed out with a single line drawn through the mistake, and this should non be done in a way that makes the error illegible

In court, the investigator's notebook is their best reference document. When testifying, the courtroom will allow an investigator to refer to notes fabricated at the fourth dimension to refresh their retention of events and deportment taken. When an investigator's notebook is examined past the court, notes consistent with the investigator'due south testimony provide the court with a coexisting assurance or truthfulness that the evidence is authentic and truthful (McRory, 2014). Alternately, if critical portions of the investigation are non properly recorded or are missing from the notebook, those portions of the evidence will be more than closely scrutinized by the defence. The court may requite those unrecorded facts less weight in its terminal deliberations to determine proof beyond a reasonable incertitude.

For an investigator, good notes are an overview of the things seen/heard and the actions taken. A chronology of notes demonstrates the investigator'southward mental map of the facts that led to forming reasonable grounds for an arrest and charges. Court cases are often extended past adjournments, appeals, or suspects evading immediate capture. This tin can extend the time between the investigation and the trial by several years. In these protracted cases, it becomes disquisitional for the investigator to accept detailed notes that accurately reflect their investigation to trigger their retentivity of the facts.

Equally important as the notebook is, note taking skills are often an underemphasized aspect of police training. Nigh police investigators develop their personal skills and note taking strategies through on the chore feel and in the "trial past fire" of cross test in court. This void in the training of note taking skills is likely due to the wide range of circumstances nether which note taking needs to take identify and because it is impossible to anticipate what facts volition become important in every possible variation of circumstances. Thus, some combination of training, common sense, and experience will come into play for investigators to become skillful in recognizing what to tape in their notebook.

The concept of "notes fabricated at the time of an effect is a rather misleading definition and requires some explanation. In an ideal world, an investigator would be able to go along through an investigation with an open notebook and record each fact and each observation of events as they transpire. Of class, the way events unfold is dynamic and unpredictable. Circumstances frequently require an investigator to be fully engaged in efforts to bring a situation under control, while protecting the life and safety of persons. There is no identify for an open notebook in such cases and the investigator is clearly non taking any notes at that time, only will do then after the event is under control, and as soon as it is practical to practise so. Although the typical reference in court is to notes made at the fourth dimension, in authenticity, they are notes made as soon equally applied under the unique circumstances of the event.

The courts practise accept the operational dynamics that exists for investigators, and it sometimes becomes a question at trial to know when the notes were actually composed. Equally such, an investigator should e'er be prepared to reply this question. Having a note in the notebook regarding the time when the writing of notes was and finished acts equally a reference to demonstrate awareness and attention to this issue.

Another consequence related to notes made at the time is the dilemma of facts that were overlooked and so recalled after the initial notes have been completed. The human being retentiveness does take its limitations and flaws. On occasion, an investigator volition complete the initial draft of their notes, and, at some afterward time may suddenly recall a betoken that was missed. On such occasions, returning to the pages of notes made at the fourth dimension and attempting to insert the recalled facts is not an acceptable practice. The proper way to record these later recollections of fact is to immediately showtime a new note page, using the current fourth dimension and engagement, make a reference to the previous case-notes, previous time, date, and page number, and record the newly recalled fact or facts. These kinds of recalled facts and late entries will exist closely examined past defence counsel, and it tin sometimes be helpful if the investigator can also make note of the fact or circumstances that led to the recollection of the additional information. Anyone who has always participated in a critical incident, where life and safety have taken priority, can tell you that in one case the event is under control, investigators can be seen writing intently to document their recollection of the events.

The post-obit strategies are recommended as a general guide to annotation taking:

1. Kickoff notes by creating a big film perspective and so move from the full general to the more than specific observations. In this large picture, you lot are creating a perspective of the facts that you have been made aware of to begin an investigation. These large motion picture facts become the starting point of your mental map of events, and these facts volition be the framework to begin thinking about offence recognition and forming reasonable grounds to believe and take action.
2. In more specific terms, and to the extent information technology is possible, begin recording all dates, times, and descriptions of persons, places, and vehicles as they emerge. You may, in fact, have already started a page in your notebook where some verbal times, addresses, licence plate numbers, names or persons, and mayhap even blurted statements from a suspect accept been jotted downward. It is acceptable to use these primal pieces of jotted data already recorded to enlarge your detailed notes at the terminate of the event in a more than complete fashion.
3. Record the identities of persons encountered and how the identity of each person was verified. For example: Witness Jane Doe (DOB: eight May 64) 34345-eight St Anywhere BC Photo drivers licence ID
4. Record all statements fabricated past witnesses and victims to reflect an accurate account of the information being conveyed. It is ofttimes not possible to record every statement fabricated verbatim in notes, and, in most cases, it is not necessary. Today, technology makes it possible to digitally record the verbatim account beingness provided past a witness or a victim. Merely, but digitally recording a statement is not sufficient, since statements will frequently grade considerations in establishing reasonable grounds for belief to take activeness. Recording the critical details existence conveyed will provide a written record of the facts considered to course reasonable grounds for conventionalities.
5. If a person is a suspect or is a person who may become a suspect, brand every endeavour to record whatsoever statements fabricated past that person verbatim. Suspects will frequently be found at the scene of a crime posing as a witness or even every bit a victim. Accurately recording the initial statements made by such a person tin can produce testify of guilt in the form of statements that are provably false or fifty-fifty incriminating.

It is the personal responsibleness of each investigator to certificate their personal perception and recollection of the event they are witnessing, as it unfolds. In cases where investigators take collaborated on an agreed version of events and authored their notes to reverberate those agreed upon facts, the notes are no longer the personal recollection of that investigator and, equally such, may be scrutinized every bit being a collective version of events aimed at producing evidence that does not reverberate a truthful account of the facts equally they were witnessed by each individual investigator.

The do of collaborating and making collective notes is sometimes chosen "boxing of notes" — this practice can be discovered by defence when the private notebooks of investigators are identical or shut to identical in format and content. The practice of boxing of notes has been identified every bit ane of the flaws in investigative practice that can pb to miscarriages of justice (Salhany, 2008). As such, collaboration between investigators when making notes should be avoided. If, at any bespeak, there is a collaboration to render to an effect together and re-examine physical evidence to clarify the point for each investigator, that collaborative endeavor should exist noted as part of the note making of each investigator.

Despite this circumspection regarding the collective product of notes, in that location are occasions where a collective note making process is used and is accepted as reasonable. This occurs during big calibration operations involving many participants, sometimes coordinated by an Emergency Operations Command Middle. In these cases, at that place is a need for the command middle participants to be completely engaged in handling the event, which may extend over periods of hours or days. The practice of each participant waiting until the protracted result has been ended to brand their individual notes would be impractical and potentially inaccurate. In these cases, it is now accepted operational do to assign one person in the command centre to act as the collective maker-of-notes to substitute for individual notation-taking. The note maker in these situations is known as "The Scribe." For the persons in the control centre to exist aware of the notes being made, the Scribe does not brand notes into a typical notebook. In such cases, the notes are made onto large pieces of flipchart paper and, as each sail of notes is completed, information technology is posted onto the wall of the control center where each participant tin reference the content of the notes and verify the accurateness of the notes. At the end of the operation, the commonage pages of notes are photographed and the note pages are saved by the scribe as an showroom. Each page is often initialled by the participants. Under this process, each participant in the control centre may adopt these notes equally a reference document for court purposes.

Topic 2: Integrity of the Criminal offence Scene

As office of offense scene direction, protecting the integrity of the law-breaking scene involves several specific processes that autumn under the Tasks category of the STAIR Tool. These are tasks that must be performed by the investigator to identify, collect, preserve, and protect evidence to ensure that it will be accustomed past the court. These tasks include:

a) Locking downwardly the crime scene

b) Setting up crime scene perimeters

c) Establishing a path of contagion

d) Establishing offense scene security

When an investigator arrives at a criminal offence scene, the need to protect that criminal offense scene becomes a requirement equally soon as it has been adamant that the criminal event has become an inactive effect and the investigator has switched to a strategic investigative response. Every bit you volition recall from the Response Transition Matrix, it is sometimes the case that investigators arrive at an agile issue in tactical investigative response mode. In these cases their first priority is to protect the life and safety of people, the need to protect the crime scene and its related evidence is a secondary business organisation. This is not to say that investigators attending in tactical investigative response way should totally ignore evidence, or should be devil-may-care with evidence if they tin protect information technology; however, if evidence cannot be protected during the tactical investigative response fashion, the courtroom will accept this as a reality.

As presently as the event transitions to an inactive event with a strategic investigative response, the expectations of the courtroom, regarding the protection of the crime scene and the show, will alter. This change means that there is an firsthand requirement for the investigator to take command of and lock down that criminal offence scene.

a) Locking Down the Criminal offense Scene

Very often, when the change to strategic investigative response is recognized, commencement responders and witnesses, victims, or the arrested doubtable may all the same be inside the crime scene at the decision of the agile event. All these people have been involved in activities at the law-breaking scene up to this point in time, and those activities could accept contaminated the criminal offense scene in various ways. Locking down the offense scene means that all ongoing activities inside the criminal offence scene must stop, and everyone must exit the criminal offense scene to a location some altitude from the law-breaking scene surface area. In one case everyone has been removed from the offense scene, a physical barrier, usually police tape, is placed around the exterior edges of the crime scene. Defining of the edges of the crime scene with tape is known as establishing a crime scene perimeter. This process of isolating the criminal offence scene within a perimeter is known as locking downwardly the criminal offence scene.

b) Law-breaking Scene Perimeter

The law-breaking scene perimeter defines the size of the crime scene, and information technology is up to the investigator to decide how big the offense scene needs to be. The size of a crime scene is usually defined by the surface area where the criminal acts accept taken place. This includes all areas where the suspect has had any interaction or activity within that scene, including points of entry and points of leave. The perimeter is also defined by areas where the interaction betwixt the suspect and a victim took place. In some cases, where there is extended interaction between a doubtable and a victim over fourth dimension and that action has happened over a distance or in several areas, the investigator may need to identify one large crime scene, or several smaller crime scene areas to set up criminal offence scene perimeters. Considering the three stages of originating show, an investigator may find that pre-criminal offense or mail service-criminal offense activity requires the crime scene perimeter to surround a larger area, or there maybe even be an additional separate law-breaking scene that needs to exist considered.

For some offense scenes where there are natural barriers, such equally buildings with doorways, information technology is easy to create a criminal offense scene perimeter defining admission. This becomes more complicated in outdoor venues or large indoor public venues, where fencing and barricades may be needed along with record markers to define the perimeters.

Once the law-breaking scene perimeter has been established and lock downwards has taken identify, it becomes necessary to ensure that no unauthorized persons cantankerous that perimeter. Typically, and ideally, there will simply be one controlled access point to the crime scene, and that bespeak will be at the entry point for the path of contagion.

c) Path of Contagion

Information technology is not possible to eliminate all potential contamination of a crime scene. We can just control and record ongoing contamination with a goal to avoid dissentious the forensic integrity of the crime scene and the exhibits. Once a crime scene has been cleared of victims, witnesses, suspects, first responders, and investigators, it is necessary to tape, in notes or a argument from each person, what contamination they have caused to the scene. The information being gathered will document what evidence has been moved, what evidence has been handled, and by whom. With this information, the investigator can plant a baseline or status of existing contamination in the offense scene. If something has been moved or handled in a manner that has contaminated that item before the lock down, it may still exist possible to get an acceptable analysis of that item if the contamination can exist explained and quantified.

Every bit an instance, sometimes in cases of serious assaults or even murders, paramedics have been present at the scene treating injured persons. When this treatment is happening, non-suspect-related Dna transfer between persons and exhibits can occur. Determining those possibilities is one of the first steps in establishing the level of existing contamination at the time of lock down.

With anybody now exterior the crime scene and the perimeter locked downwards, the next step is to establish a designated pathway where authorized personnel can re-enter the crime scene to deport their investigative duties. This pathway is known every bit a path of contagion and it is established by the start investigator to re-enter the criminal offence scene after it has been locked downwards. Prior to re-entering, this kickoff investigator will have a photograph showing the proposed surface area where the path of contamination will extend, and then, dressed in the sterile criminal offence scene apparel, the investigator will enter and marking the floor with tape to designate the pathway that others must follow. In creating this pathway, the first investigator will avert placing the pathway in a location where information technology will interfere with apparently existing show and will place it only where information technology is required to gain a concrete view of the entire crime scene. As other investigators and forensic specialists enter the crime scene to perform their duties, they volition stay inside the path of contamination and, when they leave the path to perform a specific duty of investigation or examination, they will record their departure from the path and will exist prepared to demonstrate their departure from the pathway and explain whatever new contagion caused by them, such equally dusting for fingerprints or taking exhibits.

d) Crime Scene Security

At the same time the crime scene is being defined with perimeter tape, it is also necessary to establish a security system that will ensure that no unauthorized person(s) enters the crime scene and causes contagion. For this purpose, a offense scene security officer is assigned to regulate the coming and going of persons from that offense scene. For the assigned security officeholder, this becomes a dedicated duty of guarding the criminal offense scene and only assuasive access to persons who take authorized investigative duties inside the crime scene. These persons might include:

• Forensic specialists
• Search team members
• Assigned investigators, and/or
• The coroner in the case suddenly death investigation

To maintain a record of anybody coming and going from the offense scene, a document, known as a "Crime Scene Security Log," is established, and each authorized person is signed in as they enter and signed out as they depart the scene with a short note stating the reason for their entry. Any unauthorized person who enters or attempts to enter a crime scene should be challenged past the offense scene security officer, and, if that person refuses to leave, they tin can be arrested, removed from the scene, and charged for obstructing a law officeholder.

The assigned security officeholder is responsible for creating and maintaining the Crime Security Log, which can have diverse forms. In short term, minor scale investigations, information technology may only crave a single page in the security officer's note book; however, in a large calibration, long term investigation, the log could include volumes of pages under the care of several assigned security officers working in shifts. Whatever the scale or format, the security log records who attended the scene, when they attended, why they were there, and when they left the scene. An case of a law-breaking scene security log is shown in the following example.

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Topic iii: Evidence Direction

As nosotros take already learned in the STAIR tool, analysis is the process that must occur to constitute connections between the victims, witnesses, and suspects in relation to the criminal event. The crime scene is often a nexus of those events and consequently, information technology requires a systematic approach to ensure that the prove gathered volition exist acceptable in court.

Exhibits, such as blood, pilus, fibre, fingerprints, and other objects requiring forensic assay, may illustrate spatial relationships through testify transfers. Other types of concrete evidence may establish timelines and circumstantial indications of motive, opportunity, or means. All evidence within the physical environs of the criminal offence scene is critically important to the investigative process. At any law-breaking scene, the ii greatest challenges to the concrete bear witness are contamination and loss of continuity.

Contamination of Show

Contamination is the unwanted alteration of evidence that could bear on the integrity of the original exhibit or the crime scene. This unwanted amending of evidence can wipe away original evidence transfer, dilute a sample, or eolith misleading new materials onto an exhibit. Just as evidence transfer between a doubtable and the crime scene or the suspect and the victim tin can establish a circumstantial connection, contagion tin compromise the analysis of the original show transfer to the extent that the court may not have the assay and the inference that the analysis might otherwise have shown.

Contagion can accept place in whatsoever number of ways including:

• Police or other kickoff responders interfering with bear witness during a tactical investigative response
• Suspects interfering with the crime scene to comprehend upwards or remove evidence
• Victims or witnesses handling testify
• Animals, including pets, causing unwanted transfer of evidence or even removal of show through contact or consumption
• Weather-related contamination due to rain, air current, or snowfall diluting or washing away evidence, or
• Law-breaking scene investigators failing to follow proper criminal offence scene management procedures and causing contamination of exhibits or cross-contamination between exhibits during their investigation

Contamination is a fact of life for investigators, and any crime scene will have some level of contagion before the scene becomes an inactive outcome and the police can lock down the location. While issues of life and safety are at risk, the courtroom will accept that some contamination is outside the control of the investigator. That tolerance for controlling contamination changes significantly once the crime scene is locked downwards and is nether control. Once the scene has been locked down, crime scene direction procedures must be put in identify. Criminal offence scene contamination presents iii challenges for investigators, namely:

1. Preventing contamination when possible,
2. Controlling ongoing contamination, and
3. Recording the known contamination that has taken identify

In regards to the phrase "control ongoing contamination," the word "control" is used because investigators cannot eliminate ongoing contamination, they can only seek to command it. This practise of identifying and recording the known contamination is necessary, and even if contagion has taken place, identifying and explaining that contamination may salvage the analysis of exhibits that have been contaminated.

During the disquisitional catamenia between the lockdown of the crime scene and obtaining a warrant to search the crime scene, investigators need to consider the possibilities for ongoing contamination. If reasonable grounds exist to believe that evidence of the crime volition exist damaged or destroyed by some threat of contamination, the investigator has the authority, under exigent circumstances, to re-enter that criminal offence scene without a warrant to take the necessary steps to terminate or forestall contamination and protect the evidence.

The very human activity of entering the offense scene to collect evidence, and the process of prove collection, are forms of contamination. The goal in controlling ongoing contamination is to avoid damaging the forensic integrity of the crime scene and its associated exhibits. It is this goal that makes crime scene direction procedures essential to the investigative process.

Loss of Continuity

Like controlling contamination, establishing and maintaining continuity of evidence are protocols that protect the integrity of that evidence. For any evidence to exist accepted by the courtroom, the judge must be satisfied that the exhibit presented is the same item that was taken from the crime scene. Evidence must exist presented to demonstrate "the chain of continuity," which tracks every showroom from the crime scene to the courtroom.

The evidence to evidence continuity will come from the investigator testifying that the exhibit being presented is the aforementioned showroom that was seized at the law-breaking scene. This testimony is supported by the investigator showing the courtroom their markings on the exhibit or its container. These markings will include the time, date, and investigator initials, every bit well as a notebook entry showing the time, date, and place when the particular was transported and locked abroad in the main exhibit holding locker. This evidence is further supported by an Exhibit Log that shows the showroom every bit role of the law-breaking scene evidence detailing where at the crime scene it was found, by whom it was found, and the supporting initials of anyone else who handled that exhibit from the crime scene continuously to the primary exhibit locker. Whatever process where that showroom is removed from the main exhibit locker for examination or analysis must be similarly tracked and documented with the initials, time, and date of whatever other handlers of the item. Whatever person who has handled the exhibit must be able to accept the stand providing testimony that maintains the chain of continuity of the showroom. These are simple processes all the same critical. If they are not followed rigorously, it can upshot in the exclusion of exhibits based on lost continuity.

Attention to Originating Stages of Evidence

Ane of the large dilemmas in crime scene management is determining where the criminal event happened or where the issue extended to. Making these determinations provides the investigator with the locations where evidence of the crime may be establish. This is oftentimes not a elementary affair of just attention one location or thinking about the criminal event in only a single timeframe. In the investigative procedure, there are 3 possible stages of time where evidence can originate. These are the pre-crime stage, the criminal outcome stage, and the post-crime stage.

These three stages of law-breaking can too mean at that place could be other locations outside the immediately law-breaking scene area where criminal activities might accept likewise taken place and bear witness might be institute. The indicate to recollect about the originating stages of bear witness is that each of these stages provides possibilities for collecting evidence that could connect the doubtable to the crime. When considering theory development or making an investigative plan, each of these stages of the criminal event should be considered.

1. The Pre-Crime Stage occurs when testify of training or planning tin be constitute during the investigation. It tin can include notes, inquiry, drawings, crime supplies or pre-crime contact with the victim or accomplices. Sometimes items of pre-crime origin, such equally hair and fibre, will exist later on discovered at the offense scene creating an opportunity to link the suspect back to the crime
2. The Criminal Effect Phase is when the nigh interaction takes place betwixt the criminal and the victim, or the criminal and the crime scene. During these interactions, the best possibilities for bear witness transfer occur. Even the most careful criminals have been known to leave behind some trace of their identity in the form of fingerprints, shoe prints, glove prints, tire marks, tool impressions, shell casings, hair or fibre, or DNA.
3. The Post-Crime Stage occurs when the suspect is parting the offense scene. When leaving the criminal offence scene, suspects have been known to bandage off items of show that can be recovered and examined to plant their identity. This post-crime period is too the stage where the doubtable becomes concerned with cleaning upwardly the scene. As much as a suspect may attempt to clean upwards, evidence transfers from the law-breaking scene are oftentimes disregarded. These tin can range from hair and fibre on habiliment to shards of glass on shoes. Oftentimes found postal service-crime are gain of the crime. These are often identifiable articles of stolen property with unique marks, victim DNA, serial numbers, or sometimes even trophies that the criminal takes as a keepsake.

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Evidence does not always announced as a fully formed slice of information that offers an immediate connexion or an inference to implicate a suspect. It frequently comes together as fragments of fact in timelines, spatial relationships, and evidence transfers between the originating stages of evidence constructing coexisting pictures to demonstrate the suspect'south identity, the fact pattern of the crime, opportunity, means, or motive and intent.

Enhancing the Value of Evidence Recovered

Pieces of physical show often referred to as exhibits, have investigative values at two different levels for investigators. At the first level each physical exhibit has a face up value represented by what it is and where information technology exists within the context of the crime scene. For case a bloody shoeprint found on the floor of a crime scene tells us that someone transferred evidence of blood onto their shoe from a source and walked in a detail direction within the offense scene. These are first level interpretations of evidence that we tin reconstruct with our ain observations. At the second level this aforementioned bloody shoeprint may be subjected to forensic examinations that could provide boosted information. For example assay of the shoeprint pattern, size, and accidental characteristics may allow a positive friction match to the shoe of a doubtable, or the blood may exist examined to match the DNA of a victim or other originating source. Both these kickoff level and second level values can profoundly assist in creating a reconstruction and interpretation of what happened at the crime scene.

Physical exhibits that demand to exist examined, seized, and documented at any criminal offence scene are a major concern for investigators. Equally mentioned earlier, i of the big challenges for investigators is to identify and certificate all of the available evidence and information. This raises the important questions of what will become evidence and what is going to be of import?

When the suspect and the fact-pattern are non immediately apparent, how does an investigator determine which items within the criminal offense scene need to be considered and taken as possible show? There are some general practices that can exist followed, but a guiding principle of prove collection followed past most experienced investigators is to err on the side of caution. More is e'er ameliorate than less. To assist in deciding what could mayhap become relevant, investigators need to consider:

• Items that the doubtable may have touched or interacted with
• Items that a victim may have touched or interacted with
• Items that the suspect may take brought to the crime scene
• Items that may accept passed betwixt the suspect and the victim
• Items that the doubtable may have taken from the law-breaking scene
• Items that the doubtable may have discarded while parting the crime scene

One time the crime scene test has been completed, and the crime scene has been unsecured and abandoned as an open area, returning to collect forgotten evidence is often not possible. It is better to collect everything that could possibly be relevant or could go relevant.

In terms of searching for show, once the crime scene has been locked downward and secured, the criminal offence scene itself needs to be considered equally the kickoff big showroom. Every bit the start big showroom, it needs to be subjected to documentation using photography, video recording, measurements, and diagrams. Within this get-go big exhibit, other smaller and perchance-related showroom may be discovered. What items are found and where may testify spatial relationships of interaction demonstrating proof to back up a sequence of events. This concrete evidence will go the benchmark of known facts that investigators can utilise to verify the stories of victims and witnesses, or fifty-fifty the excuse of a possible doubtable. Physical prove at both level-i and level-two becomes the known facts upon which theories of events may be developed and tested. Whatever particular could be considered evidence if information technology demonstrates a spatial relationship relative to the identify, the people, or the times, relative to the criminal event.

The very first pace at this point is securing and documenting the crime scene. It is helpful for investigators to recognize that a crime scene is not simply a location where exhibits are establish, only the criminal offence scene should be considered as a single big exhibit unto itself. Non simply volition individual exhibits within the crime scene accept value as evidence, the spatial relationships between exhibits in the scene may speak as circumstantial evidence to the overall result.

To secure the crime scene as the first big exhibit, investigators will bear a complete walk-through on the path of contamination completely photographing and videotaping the unabridged criminal offence scene. This first procedure is very helpful in demonstrating the exact country of the criminal offense scene prior to things beingness moved for forensic examination. This should happen immediately later lock downwards and it will become a snapshot demonstrating the existing spatial relationships at that point in fourth dimension.

Creating a Field Sketch and Crime Scene Diagram

The next step is to document the crime scene as either a field sketch or a crime scene diagram. Either of these can be done to illustrate the physical dimensions and notable characteristics of the crime scene. The departure between the Field Sketch and the Criminal offence Scene Diagram is that the sketch, as unsaid past the name, is a quick rough depiction of the event. The field sketch, similar notes in an investigator's notebook, serves every bit a memory aid. The crime scene diagram is a more formal representation of the same information, but is composed to scale using the help of the field sketch and measurements. In either of these drawings of the crime scene similar cadre information will be represented.

• If it is a building, information technology will show the accost of the location, entries, exits, windows, the position of rooms, the position of furniture, and the location of all exhibits relative to the criminal offence.
• In an outdoor crime scene, establishing and documenting the location of the scene becomes more complex. The geographic location of an outdoor scene needs to be established relative to some known geographic location, such as a roadway intersection, a mile-marker, or even by manner of fixing of GPS coordinates of breadth and longitude to a permanent fixed object at the criminal offense scene. In some cases, such as a big open field, where no permanent fixed objects are available, it may go necessary to identify a fixed object like a steel survey pivot to mark a stock-still betoken at the crime scene.
• After the initial diagram features are completed and evidence is collected within the criminal offence scene, each of those exhibits volition be shown on the diagram with an showroom number. That number volition be cross referenced to the exhibit log that will be completed by an assigned exhibit custodian as function of the crime scene management squad. This process of showing each exhibit equally a number eliminates the demand to ataxia the diagram with written description of each showroom found. In some cases, where at that place are many exhibits, writing the description of each showroom onto the diagram would make information technology unreadable, chaotic, and confusing.
• In addition to existing features and evidence at the crime scene, the diagram will too bear witness the location of the path of contamination that has been established and the external perimeter of the crime scene.
• As part of accepted protocols, these diagrams are always drawn with an orientation to Northward at the superlative of the diagram, and all writing on the diagram is oriented in one direction, namely east to west

The Exhibit Log

Equally part of the evidence management procedure, establishing the start link in the chain of continuity occurs when the criminal offense scene is secured and the assigned showroom custodian records of the exhibits that accept been identified at the scene is created. These items are recorded in a document chosen an "Exhibit Log" or an "Exhibit Ledger." This Exhibit Log or Ledger shows an assigned number for each showroom that is identified and seized. It shows where at the scene the showroom was located, and the number of that exhibit is place in the corresponding location in the offense scene diagram.

The Exhibit Log shows who seized the exhibit and when information technology was turned over to the exhibit custodian. The Exhibit Log also shows a fourth dimension and date when the showroom was placed into the main secure exhibit storage locker. When the exhibits are taken to court, the courtroom will only accept the exhibits if the secured chain of continuity tin be shown to be guarded and unbroken. If an exhibit custodian were to stop and exit the exhibits unguarded in a vehicle or left the showroom in the role while attending to another affair – that would break the chain of continuity. The following document is an example of a mutual Exhibit Log Document.

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Show at a crime scene is by and large found in two forms. One is testify of witnesses who tin can provide their observations of the criminal result. The other is physical items of prove that can be examined, analyzed, and interpreted to illustrate facts near the criminal upshot. Each of these forms of prove nowadays some like concerns for investigators, and each requires some specific considerations to best search for, collect, and preserve the information that exists.

Searching for Witness Evidence

Identifying and interviewing the witnesses to a criminal effect tin exist as elementary as speaking to persons who have remained at the scene of the crime to give statements. Alternately, it can be as difficult as identifying and tracking down a person who saw something or heard something that was function of the criminal event, but they are not even aware that what they saw or heard was of import, or they do wish to cooperate with the police.

The procedure searching for witnesses starts at the criminal offence scene itself. This search volition include not only identifying and interviewing the persons who are immediately nowadays, but as well determining who else might have been nowadays during the pre-crime and post-crime stages of the event.

• Often, witnesses remaining at the law-breaking scene can assist in identifying other witnesses who were present and have since departed.
• CCTV security cameras can sometimes aid in identifying other witnesses who were present.
• Identifying the vehicles parked in proximity to the crimes scene or returning to the criminal offense scene on subsequent days around the fourth dimension of the crime can help in identifying a witness whose normal course of activities may have previously put them in the area at the time of the crime.

In addition to these witness search strategies, another process known every bit canvassing for witnesses can also be employed. Canvassing is a strategy of conducting door-to-door inquiries in the firsthand area of the crime to decide if annihilation was seen or heard by neighbours. Canvassing tin can also accept the grade of structured media releases to request persons with knowledge of the criminal event to come up forrad. Whatever witness identification strategies are used, time is of the essence. Memories fade and people under normal circumstances only retain day-to-twenty-four hours recollection of unremarkable events for a limited time. Identifying and speaking to the witness, and receiving their all-time recollection of the events, will be discussed in the chapter on witness management; yet, witness testify can make or pause the investigation, and it must be nerveless quickly, accurately, and finer.

Searching for and Identifying Concrete Show

Earlier in this book, nosotros described concrete testify every bit the cached treasure for investigators and critical when it comes to verifying or discounting various versions of an issue in court. Concrete evidence is something tangible that the courtroom tin can examine and consider in making connections and determining proof beyond a reasonable doubt. In contrast, witness testify does not have a physical quality that the court can find. It requires the courtroom to have the perception and interpretation of events existence provided by a person and, equally such, the court cannot evaluate witness bear witness with the aforementioned conviction of verification that it uses when considering physical evidence.

In our sub-section on Originating Stages of Show, nosotros looked at the timeframes and alternating offense scene venues where bear witness of a crime may exist found. Now, nosotros are going to consider the physical bear witness that investigators should think about when evaluating what might found an item of concrete evidence. We will consider how evidence tin be searched for, how information technology should be collected, when information technology should be collected, and how it should be preserved. These processes present several challenges:

1. Physical bear witness can be transient or time sensitive. As part of the big pic search in the first instance, the investigator must be conscious of concrete evidence that needs to exist immediately recorded and documented.
2. Physical evidence tin be concealed and may not exist easily visible. Walking onto a criminal offence scene in the start case, it would be unrealistic for an investigator to believe they will immediately see all the physical show that needs to be collected. Items of concrete prove can be in many forms and discovering their existence is a matter of careful examination of the entire scene. The thought of conducting a big picture show search kickoff allows the investigator to not but discover the immediately credible items, but too for a survey of the crime scene to determine areas where the minor scale and more detailed search might be productive.
   • Doors and windows: open up, locked, or unlock can be relevant to time and ways of entry or exit from the scene
   • Condition of room lighting: turned on or off can suggest the lighting conditions at the fourth dimension of the crime
   • Condition of appliances in use at the scene can indicate certain activities
   • Last activation of electronic devices can narrow timelines of activeness
   • Ambient crime scene temperature and body temperature can be relevant in relation to time of death and the progress rigor mortis or decomposition
3. The firsthand value of an item may not exist visible at first glance. Moving from the large picture search to identify items in the smaller scale search, investigators tin can conduct a detailed grid search of the crime scene to locate items that may be very small or are concealed by other objects. These grid searches can exist useful in breaking down the crime scene into smaller search areas to make sure that no area goes unexamined. Along with this detailed search for modest or concealed items, the investigator needs to consider enlisting the assistance of forensic specialists to search for items that may require enhanced examination and analysis across the bounds of regular human senses and perception. For example, the apply of black light tin reveal body fluid or stains, and latent fingerprints can become visible after fuming or the application of special powder. In most major criminal cases, forensic specialists will be available to assist in conducting the detailed criminal offence scene search. Every investigator must be good in recognizing when to employ of these forensic tools.
4. The size or nature of an particular of bear witness may make information technology impossible to seize or preserve. Amidst the challenges of gathering bear witness at a offense scene are:
   • Some exhibits are too large to be physically seized and brought to court. As previously noted, the unabridged crime scene and the inherent spatial relationships of objects inside that scene could be considered every bit i big exhibit that needs to exist shown to the court. This big crime scene showroom is captured and can be presented to the courtroom by fashion of video recording, photographs, criminal offense scene diagram, or using a sample of smaller exhibits within the scene itself.
   • Some exhibits are perishable and impractical to seize and preserve for court. A good example would be the show of the dead trunk in a murder case. The body itself would be impractical to bring to court. Information technology is considered adequate to have photographic evidence and certificates of analysis on pathology samples.
   • Some exhibits are transient in nature and cannot be permanently seized and preserved for court. For example, ambient room temperature or lighting status at the crime scene needs to be preserved by photographs and measurements in that moment of time and subsequently presented to the court as photographs and readings by the attending investigator.
5. The drove of sure prove can cause cross-contamination to other exhibits. A major consideration in the collection of any evidence at a crime scene is to ensure that evidence with any potential for cross-contagion is handled in a manner that takes precautions confronting this occurring. In most cases, at major law-breaking scenes, physical prove is nerveless by forensic experts. However, this does not preclude the need for investigators to understand the dangers of cross-contamination and the precautions required to prevent information technology. This is particularly truthful when it comes to the collection of actual substances where Dna might be collected. Dna analysis is now then avant-garde that even a pocket-sized trace of Deoxyribonucleic acid material can be transferred by the careless or inadvertent handling of one showroom to the next. This cross-contagion can be avoided or prevented by the exercise of treatment merely one exhibit at a fourth dimension, mark that exhibit, placing into a secure container, and decontaminating the investigator by changing gloves and discarding whatever particular could have come into contact with the previous exhibit. Despite the balls that forensic specialists will commonly nourish a criminal offense scene for testify collection, information technology is possible that an investigator at the scene will exist forced to handle a number of exhibits to protect that prove from some blazon of ecology damage or other security threat.

Topic 4: Scaling the Investigation to the Upshot

Not every crime scene is a major issue that requires an investigator to call out a squad and undertake the criminal offense scene and evidence management processes that take been described in this volume. Frequently, for minor crimes, a unmarried investigator will be alone at the law-breaking scene and will appoint in all the roles described, albeit on a far smaller calibration. When this procedure is being undertaken past a unmarried investigator on a smaller scale, the issues of diagram, security log, and showroom log may be limited to information and illustrations in the notebook of the investigator.

It is important to stress that each of the tasks below needs to be considered and addressed for every crime scene investigation, no matter how big or how small. Specifically:

• The crime scene must be secured, preserved, and recorded until evidence is collected
• Existing contamination must be considered and recorded
• Cross-contamination must be prevented
• Exhibits must be identified, preserved, nerveless, and secured to preserve the concatenation of continuity.

Large scale or small scale, all these issues must be considered, addressed, and recorded to satisfy the court that the crime scene and the show were handled correctly.

Summary

In this chapter, nosotros have discussed the critical issues of law-breaking scene management, prove identification, bear witness location, evidence drove, evidence protection, and proper documentation. These are the most important skills that an investigator tin can larn and incorporate into their investigative toolkit. As much as these tasks may seem simplistic, ritualistic, and mundane, they are the very foundation of a criminal investigation, and without this foundation of proper show practices in identify, the case will collapse when it comes to courtroom.

There is a great opportunity on a day-to-day basis for new investigators to brainstorm practicing the protocols of crime scene direction on a smaller calibration investigating crimes such as break and entry and lower level assaults. In one case these skills of criminal offense scene management and evidence management are learned and incorporated into daily practice, they volition become the procedural norm and will course the essential operational habits for proper and professional investigative practice.

Long Descriptions

Criminal offense scene security log long clarification: A blank crime scene security log. Information technology has spaces to write down the name of the assigned scene security officer, the date, the police department investigating the scene, the file number, and the law-breaking scene location. It also has a table with several rows to tape everyone who has attended the criminal offence scene. The table has spaces for proper noun and rank, initials, engagement/time in, date/time out, duties on offense scene, and contamination caused. [Return to Crime scene security log]

The originating stages of evidence long description: A chart showing what happens at the dissimilar originating stages of evidence. The iii stages are:

• Pre-crime stage
  • Planning
  • Notes
  • Research
  • Criminal offence supplies
• Criminal event stage
  • Most transfer of physical evidence
  • Suspect to Victim
  • Victim to Suspect
  • Doubtable to Scene
• Mail service-crime phase
  • Fugitive anticipation
  • Casts-off prove
  • Evidence of make clean-upwards
  • Transfer takeaway
  • Proceeds of the law-breaking

[Return to The originating stages of prove]

Exhibit log long description: A sample exhibit log. There is room to write the name of the assigned exhibit custodian, the date, the file number, and the location. In that location is a table with several rows for writing about the exhibits from a criminal offence scene. In that location are spaces for the exhibit number, description, who the showroom was seized past, the date/time, the location, when the exhibit was turned over to the showroom custodian, and the date/fourth dimension secured. [Return to Exhibit log]

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Source: https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/criminalinvestigation/chapter/chapter-8-crime-scene-management/

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