• Question: What is the CSI or anyother detective agency really like and what is the most useful factor or tool that helps them solve a crime?

    Asked by chucknorrisforthewin to Jamie, Jodie, Kat, Mark, Niamh on 22 Mar 2011 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Niamh Nic Daeid

      Niamh Nic Daeid answered on 21 Mar 2011:

      Hi chuck

      Most CSI units look nothing like the one on the TV ! Mark can hive you a bette answer but most have both offices where people write up their work and reports as well as other areas where scene kit and equipment is kept.

      Forensic science laboratories also tend to have specific offices for report writing and looking at results etc which are separate from the actual laboratories where the samples are analysed. there are also separate storage areas for items of evidence which are awaiting examination and which have been examined.

      Different scenes require different tools but common would be light sources to help visualise items of potential evidence – you need those at almost every scene so the are pretty useful.

    • Photo: Jamie Pringle

      Jamie Pringle answered on 21 Mar 2011:

      Hello chucknorrisforthewin,

      Well unlike the TV, as you probably realise the whoile investigation is a lot slower, more methodical and rigorous. From my experience, there are a whole host of experts, Im just involved with the search phase, there would be dog teams, metal detector teams, remote sensing data analysts usingf satellite data, fly-pasts by fixed-wing military planes, observation/thermal camera helicopters, trained geomorphologists to see where things might be buried, methane and metal probes to have a go, botanists/entomologists, finger-tip searches, physchologists to see if their knowledge has any bearing, any identifiable markers would be inevstigated, then trained archaeologists to do some digging.

      So you can see just on my small area the resources needed for a search. Major investigations can talk months if not years to complete.

    • Photo: Mark Hill

      Mark Hill answered on 22 Mar 2011:

      Hi chucknorrisforthewin,
      I am not sure what they are really like, but from my work, the forensic scene examination is often the most critical aspect of evidence collection. The biggest tool in my service has been the advent of DNA collection and testing. This has proved to be far more effective than fingerprints and such like. DNA is a lot more commonly found and doesn’t rely on not being smudged. However, the collection techniques need to be scrupulous, to avoid cross contamination, or the suggestion of it.

      From the early DNA analysis techniques, which required a relatively arle sample, advances have been made in the speed of analysis and the development of techniques on very small samples, such as Low Copy Number (LCN) and techniquies which clone and enlarge samples to make them suitable for analysis. The techniques in them selves are more exacting, such as Short Tandem Repeat analysis, in which a number of preselected sites on a gene are used for comparison. There is also now Second Generation Multiplex+, which looks at ten sites, including the sex determination site, giving a match probabilty of 1 in 1000 000 000, or put another way, with the population of the world, 7 people with very similar DNA out of 7000 000 000 people.

      This has to be the most effective tool, developed in the UK, but now used internationally.

      A really interesting question. Thank you.

      Mark.

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