NCJ Number
81450
Date Published
1978
Length
27 pages
Annotation
A Minnesota inservice crime-scene-processing course is evaluated.
Abstract
The report covers characteristics of the students attending the courses, student attitudes toward the delivery of the training, and student assessments of the course content. The 80-hour course provided by the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension is designed to provide police investigative personnel with skills in sketching the crime scene, handling latent prints, photography and developing, lifting, casting, handling footprints, tiretracks, toolmarks, tracing evidence, body fluids, drugs and narcotics, handling firearms found at the scene, questioned documents, and evidentiary legal considerations. The course was offered five times during the evaluation period, from November 1976 through May 1977. An average of 20 students attended each 2-week class. The students came from a wide range of law enforcement agencies. There were slightly more sheriff's deputies than police officers, and more than half came from rural parts of the State. The majority of trainees had high school diplomas or GED certificates. Over half had some college, and a few had graduate work or vocational training. In student evaluations of the course topics, photography, latent prints, packaging evidence, and the FTX were given consistently high ratings. There was some criticism of the instruction method used with photography. Course topics consistently rated relatively low were body fluids, questioned documents, drugs and narcotics, firearms, and toolmarks. School administrators should reassess teaching strategies in these areas. Appended are questionnaire comments and a sample of the crime scene processing questionnaire. Tabular data are provided.