Documentation is one of the core aspects of a comprehensive crime scene investigation. When criminal justice officers collect and keep a record of various data bits, it helps the police experts to assess the crime scene properly and restore the crime scenario based on repetitive analysis of documentation. According to Pazarena (2022), there could be a variety of types of crime scene documentation intended to help criminal justice officers, such as taking notes, drawing sketches, and taking photos and videos of the crime scene. Overall, the core task of the person documenting the crime scene is to record all the vital information so that the offense can be reviewed from multiple angles (Geldenhuys, 2021). Further investigation can significantly benefit from the implementation of proper crime scene documentation, as different types of evidence could enhance the grade of consistency of the investigation. The final case report could look completely different if some information pertaining to the crime was not observed and recorded.
The importance of documenting crime scenes can be perceived through the lens of the appropriate positioning of the person responsible for collecting evidence. I believe that this field of criminal justice is exceptionally interesting because it forces the responsible criminal justice agent to learn more about how one should compile non-homogeneous data sets. In the case where information is not documented properly, it will not be allowed for court use as a means of testimony. All the benefits related to how evidence could simplify the outlook on the crime scene would be lost. I am interested in the topic of documenting crime scenes because I see it as an activity that places emphasis on proper investigative methods and directs the whole investigation process. If a criminal justice agent makes a mistake when documenting the evidence, it will most likely lead to skewed outcomes, including the incarceration of innocent people.
The primary reason why crime scene documentation remains a tangible trend even in today’s criminal justice environment is the fact that every criminal justice agent working at the scene could affect the investigation. Even so, court judges do not rely on people’s memory because certain details might not be recounted objectively (Shaw & Vredeveldt, 2019). The initial status of the scene could be utilized by criminal justice officers to identify who had committed the crime and how. These benefits are not merely chronological or person-centered because evidence collection is directly related to the traceability of available information. According to Pazarena (2022), crime scenes can be documented to recover specific items that could contribute to the continuity of the case. The evidence can be compromised due to the failure to initiate the chain of custody, and all the subsequent examinations will be refuted.
The future of the crime scene documentation profession looks bright because relevant evidence is always required to gain a better understanding of the case. An unrecognized bit of evidence could become the decisive factor that turned from an irretrievably lost picture into an idle direction of the investigation (Shaw & Vredeveldt, 2019). The grade of controversy surrounding crime scene documentation is not going to reduce because there are pieces of evidence that are less obvious or harder to obtain. This is why many criminal justice cases are still affected by evidence contamination and degradation (Geldenhuys, 2021). The field of crime scene documentation may serve different purposes, but the biggest challenge for criminal justice agents is to complete the crime scene puzzles and tell the story of how certain crimes were committed. Thus, the importance of documenting evidence cannot be overlooked by criminal justice experts expecting to solve crimes more often.
References
Geldenhuys, K. (2021). Crime Scene Investigation: Collecting evidence to put the puzzle together. Servamus Community-based Safety and Security Magazine, 114(8), 16-19. Web.
Pazarena, L. (2022). General guidelines for writing CSI reports for crime scenes. In Report Writing for Crime Scene Investigators (pp. 45-62). CRC Press.
Shaw, J., & Vredeveldt, A. (2019). The recovered memory debate continues in Europe: Evidence from the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, France, and Germany. Clinical Psychological Science, 7(1), 27-28. Web.