Outdoor Crime Investigation

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Recommended: Basic elements of criminal investigation

Ever wonder just how investigations are conducted? Or how detectives can figure out crimes that seem extremely difficult? The answer is simple, it lies in the process of Criminal Investigation. Criminal investigations are used to find, analyze, and process evidence and information useful to the crime scene. Criminal Investigations help solve crimes ranging from a simple breaking and entering to even a crime like homicide. Criminal Investigation is not a simple act, criminal investigations have many different types of crime scenes, and complicated stages to follow during an investigation.

There are many different kinds of crimes, therefore there are many different types of crime scenes. To investigators, the first step of any crime scene, is figuring out what type it is (Penven, Don). There may be many different types of crime scenes, but all crimes can be put under one of three main categories of crime. The different types of scenes, dictate how the procedure of the investigation.

The first type of crime scene is the outdoor crime scene. Outdoor crime scenes can be the most problematic of all the crime scenes. This is because outdoor crime scenes are most vulnerable to loss, contamination, and change of physical evidence in a short period of time.

Also, …show more content…

Evidence can be lost due to many things like, temperature, snow, rain, and wind (All About Forensic Science). These are often the most common type of alters in an outdoor crime scene. Many times evidence cannot be protected under these kinds of conditions and will be ruined or at least less reliable to the investigation(Webb, David). Outdoor crime scenes are also more open to the public, allowing more opportunities for evidence to be altered with or contaminated. It is more likely that a citizen will wander into an outdoor crime scene before it could be processed than a citizen wandering into any other type of crime

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