Proper preservation of evidence at a crime scene is crucial for law enforcement officers to solve a crime. First responders must secure the area and make detailed notes of the scene. Evidence must be carefully collected and stored in the appropriate container. Proper preservation is necessary for trial, study, and potential return to the owner.
A law enforcement officer’s ability to solve a crime may depend on the proper preservation of evidence at the crime scene. Most crime scenes leave behind a plethora of evidence that must be meticulously collected and then preserved to provide clues investigators use to solve the crime. Proper evidence storage begins with securing the crime scene and making notes of what the scene looked like when first responders arrived. Next, each piece of evidence must be carefully collected and placed in the appropriate container depending on the type of evidence involved. Once evidence is gathered, it must be properly stored or archived in order to use it at trial or to verify it for clues.
When first responders arrive at a crime scene, the most important stage of evidence preservation begins. First responders must be sure not to disturb the scene and must secure the area immediately. You should contact the appropriate personnel, such as the coroner, detectives or crime scene investigators, and make detailed notes of the condition of the scene upon arrival.
Once the appropriate personnel arrive, any potential pieces of evidence must be properly collected. Evidence that is fragile, or that can easily be destroyed or mutilated, should be collected first. The techniques involved in evidence preservation include gathering the evidence with the proper tools and then storing the evidence in the appropriate type of container.
Understanding how to collect evidence is key. For example, hair evidence should be collected with tweezers and placed in an airtight plastic bag. Fingerprints are usually collected by dusting and then lifting the print and placing it on a slide. Blood tests are generally collected with the appropriate cotton swab or gauze and then air dried and properly refrigerated.
Once evidence has been collected, evidence preservation requires that it be properly preserved for a variety of reasons, including use during trial, study, and, in some cases, return to the owner. In most jurisdictions, original evidence collected at a crime scene must be presented in a trial, which requires proper preservation of evidence. Additionally, many types of evidence, such as hair, fingerprints, or blood traces, can be used by forensic scientists to gather additional clues, such as a DNA profile or fingerprints of a potential suspect. In some cases, evidence must be returned to its rightful owner if it is not being used in court or if it is irrelevant to the case.
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