The contribution of forensic science to crime analysis and investigation: Forensic intelligence
Introduction
Since the 1990s, security and policing strategies have moved toward more intelligence-led and proactive frameworks. Their efficient use is often considered as a pivotal instrument for informing decision making at a strategic and tactical levels, for instance in order to fight terrorism or to appropriately deploy police resources. In particular, criminal intelligence is now broadly implemented within law enforcement organisations and through technologies such as databases, geographical information systems, data mining techniques, biometric security devices, and so on.
Beyond the recognised successes of identification databases such as DNA or AFIS, there is evidence that forensic case data could contribute more valuably to the provision of intelligence: it is recurrently discovered retrospectively, that all the information needed was previously in the files and could have been proactively used in order to solve the case earlier [1], [2], [3], [4]. This weakness is generally widely recognised, but implementation of solutions to efficiently capitalise on intelligence that can be inferred from case data have shown to be very difficult to achieve, not to mention forensic science data, although it is demonstrated a posteriori, that this is one of the strongest type of evidential information due to its materiality [3].
In this paper, we argue that the forensic science community should participate much more actively in the intelligence debate and initiate an intensive modelling program in order to create a desirable synergy between forensic science, crime analysis, investigation and other fields related to the study of crime. From this long-term project, a better definition of intelligence processes that fully integrate forensic case data should result.
This program starts via a “bottom-up” approach that consists of collecting and classifying existing systems (DNA, AFIS, etc.) through the kind of intelligence they provide into an analytical framework that is abstract from the computer. The resulting structure is presented as an organised set of elementary logical steps whose relevance is evaluated in relation with the criminal context, the existing pragmatic constraints and other parameters imposed by the criminal justice system. Finally, the primitive inference structures identified are integrated into the specific process of serial crime analysis. This shows how forensic science can become part of an approach that facilitates the resolution of problems by sharing the knowledge of investigators, crime analysts and forensic scientists.
Section snippets
Forensic intelligence
The concept of forensic intelligence remains fuzzy, and consequently has led to difficulties in implementing methods in an operational environment. A clearer definition and conceptual advances show already important results, but this need to be further delineated. Forensic intelligence is still today often associated with the use of identification databases, such as DNA, AFIS, shoemarks, ballistic “fingerprints”, etc. and much of the debate has focused on those systems and mechanisms to
Primitive inference 1: the identity
This first elementary form aims at recognising a known person, even if he tries to hide his true identity. This inference was implemented as a structured and systematic process, at the end of the 19th century, through the Bertillonnage and its main component, the anthropometrical system. It can be expressed in the following way:
Compare the measurements taken from one person with a collection of measurements taken from previously condemned criminals, if a similar/close/analogue record is found,
Resolving the ambivalence
The confusion can be illustrated by a number of examples integrating the proposed primitive inferences.
Primitive forensic intelligence inferences within their context
Critical factors can be illustrated by a set of situations:
- 1.
Intelligence must be timely. For instance, Primitive inference 2(a) (Section 3.2) (source to the trace) is generally carried out under time pressure as it is frequently applied to check an arrested suspect against a collection of traces. The suspect is thus likely to be released before the end of the analysis. The same is true for Primitive inference 1 (Section 3.1) (identification of a recidivist) since the identification of a person
Combining expertises in inferences processes
The involvement of a great variety of knowledge is necessary to make the whole logical processing efficient as it encourages cross-fertilisation with different domains surrounding forensic science. The appropriate use of this knowledge in the treatment of data is actually what is called ‘analysis’. This separation in domains of expertise is undesirable as the provision of intelligence results from one single process. Linkage blindness often results from such distribution of territories.
Full specific implementation for serial crime analysis
One important criminal intelligence process is the analysis of serial crime. It can be seen as an iterative process that accepts new criminal events as its input and distributes them into a structured memory that networks basic pieces of intelligence. This memory is then scrutinised in order to ensure its coherence, detect new relations and suggest guidelines for strategic analysis, investigation, proactive policing or targeted collection of data (Fig. 4).
In this approach, the design of the
Conclusion
Forensic intelligence could participate more actively in the intelligence debate if its scope could be better defined and properly situated within the criminal justice system and security structures. An intensive modelling approach has been initiated in order to better understand why forensic case data can provide solid and timely intelligence in a great variety of situations, to eliminate the ambivalence in the role played by forensic science within the criminal justice system and to provide
Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank all the police of the French part of Switzerland for the support they provide to this approach. Alexandre Girod, the Chief of the Forensic Science Department of the Police Cantonale Vaudoise is particularly stimulating the operational development of forensic intelligence. One of the figures has been directly extracted from his work on the geographical and temporal distribution of shoemark patterns.
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