CSI-CSI: Comparing several investigative approaches toward crime scene improvement.

Crime scene investigations are highly complex environments that require the CSI to engage in complex decision-making. CSIs must rely on personal experience, context information, and scientific knowledge about the fundamental principles of forensic science to both find and correctly interpret ambiguous traces and accurately reconstruct a scene. Differences in CSI decision making can arise in multiple stages of a crime scene investigation. Given its crucial role in forensic investigation, CSI decision-making must be further studied to understand how differences may arise during the stages of a crime scene investigation. The following exploratory research project is a first step at comparing how crime scene investigations of violent robberies are conducted between 25 crime scene investigators from nine countries across the world. Through a mock crime scene and semi-structured interview, we observed that CSIs have adopted a variety of investigation approaches. The results show that CSIs have different working strategies and make different decisions when it comes to the construction of relevant hypotheses, their search strategy, and the collection of traces. These different decisions may, amongst other factors, be due to the use of prior information, a CSI's knowledge and experience, and the perceived goal of their investigation. We suggest the development of more practical guidelines to aid CSIs through a hypothetico-deductive reasoning process, where (a) CSIs are supported in the correct use of contextual information, (b) outside knowledge and expertise are integrated into this process, and (c) CSIs are guided in the evaluation of the utility of their traces.

The added value of behavioural information in crime scene investigations.

Forensic and behavioural science are often seen as two different disciplines. However, there is a growing realization that the two disciplines should be more strongly integrated. Incorporating psychological theories on human behaviour in forensic science could help solving investigative problems, especially at the crime scene. At the crime scene it is not just about applying scientific methods to analyse traces; these traces must first be perceived and categorized as relevant. At the crime scene, the behavioural perspective of an investigative psychologist could play an important role. In this study, we examine to what extent (1) investigative psychologists detect deviant behavioural cues compared to forensic examiners when investigating a crime scene, (2) forensic examiners can find the relevant traces that can be associated with this behaviour and (3) the availability of a psychological report highlighting these behavioural cues helps forensic examiners in finding more relevant traces. To this end, a total of 14 investigative psychologists and 40 forensic examiners investigated a virtual 3D mock crime scene. The results of this study show that investigative psychologists see significantly more deviant behavioural cues than forensic examiners, and that forensic examiners who receive a psychological report on these cues recognize and collect significantly more traces that can be linked to deviant behaviour and have a high evidential value than examiners who did not receive this information. However, the study also demonstrates that behavioural information is likely to be ignored when it contradicts existing beliefs.

Rapid identification information and its influence on the perceived clues at a crime scene: An experimental study.

Crime scenes can always be explained in multiple ways. Traces alone do not provide enough information to infer a whole series of events that has taken place; they only provide clues for these inferences. CSIs need additional information to be able to interpret observed traces. In the near future, a new source of information that could help to interpret a crime scene and testing hypotheses will become available with the advent of rapid identification techniques. A previous study with CSIs demonstrated that this information had an influence on the interpretation of the crime scene, yet it is still unknown what exact information was used for this interpretation and for the construction of their scenario. The present study builds on this study and gains more insight into (1) the exact investigative and forensic information that was used by CSIs to construct their scenario, (2) the inferences drawn from this information, and (3) the kind of evidence that was selected at the crime scene to (dis)prove this scenario. We asked 48 CSIs to investigate a potential murder crime scene on the computer and explicate what information they used to construct a scenario and to select traces for analysis. The results show that the introduction of rapid ID information at the start of an investigation contributes to the recognition of different clues at the crime scene, but also to different interpretations of identical information, depending on the kind of information available and the scenario one has in mind. Furthermore, not all relevant traces were recognized, showing that important information can be missed during the investigation. In this study, accurate crime scenarios where mainly build with forensic information, but we should be aware of the fact that crime scenes are always contaminated with unrelated traces and thus be cautious of the power of rapid ID at the crime scene.

Identification at the crime scene: The sooner, the better? The interpretation of rapid identification information by CSIs at the crime scene.

New technologies will allow Crime Scene Investigators (CSIs) in the near future to analyse traces at the crime scene and receive identification information while still conducting the investigation. These developments could have considerable effects on the way an investigation is conducted. CSIs may start reasoning based on possible database-matches which could influence scenario formation (i.e. the construction of narratives that explain the observed traces) during very early phases of the investigation. The goal of this study is to gain more insight into the influence of the rapid identification information on the reconstruction of the crime and the evaluation of traces by addressing two questions, namely 1) is scenario formation influenced from the moment that ID information is provided and 2) do database matches influence the evaluation of traces and the reconstruction of the crime. We asked 48 CSIs from England to investigate a potential murder crime scene on a computer. Our findings show that the interpretation of the crime scene by CSIs is affected by the moment identification information is provided. This information has a higher influence on scenario formation when provided after an initial scenario has been formed. Also, CSIs seem to attach great value to traces that produce matches with databases and hence yield a name of a known person. Similar traces that did not provide matches were considered less important. We question whether this kind of selective attention is desirable as it may cause ignorance of other relevant information at the crime scene.

The Influence of New Technologies on the Visual Attention of CSIs Performing a Crime Scene Investigation.

Currently, a series of promising new tools are under development that will enable crime scene investigators (CSIs) to analyze traces in situ during the crime scene investigation or enable them to detect blood and provide information on the age of blood. An experiment is conducted with thirty CSIs investigating a violent robbery at a mock crime scene to study the influence of such technologies on the perception and interpretation of traces during the first phase of the investigation. Results show that in their search for traces, CSIs are not directed by the availability of technologies, which is a reassuring finding. Qualitative findings suggest that CSIs are generally more focused on analyzing perpetrator traces than on reconstructing the event. A focus on perpetrator traces might become a risk when other crime-related traces are overlooked, and when analyzed traces are in fact not crime-related and in consequence lead to the identification of innocent suspects.