NCJ Number
228514
Journal
Journal of Forensic Sciences Volume: 54 Issue: 5 Dated: September 2009 Pages: 1077-1080
Date Published
September 2009
Length
4 pages
Annotation
This study of burglary and vehicle crimes investigated by Northamptonshire Police (United Kingdom) analyzed the relationships of the socioeconomic conditions of the neighborhoods in which crimes occurred and the likelihood of recovering useful DNA and fingerprint evidence.
Abstract
The findings indicate that for stolen vehicles, significantly more forensic material (both DNA and fingerprints) was recovered and identified in areas of greater deprivation, as defined by the British Government's Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD); however, this did not lead to a corresponding increase in solved cases. This finding conflicts with advice promoted in previous publications regarding the importance of police agencies prioritizing the deployment of crime scene investigation (CSI) resources to crime scenes that are most likely to yield forensic material. The findings of the current study indicate that this criteria for prioritizing CSI deployment does not necessarily produce a higher rate of solved cases in the case of stolen vehicles. The current research did not analyze reasons for this finding, but does offer some plausible theories for testing in future research. The data pertained to crime scenes investigated by police between April 2007 and March 2008. The crimes included for the study were residential burglary, theft from a motor vehicle, and theft of a motor vehicle. The dataset consisted of 8,702 crime scenes that involved 1,958 residential burglaries, 3,919 thefts from motor vehicles, and 2,925 thefts of motor vehicles. The IMD score obtained for each crime scene reflected the following domains of deprivation: income deprivation; employment deprivation; health deprivation; disability, education, skills, and training deprivation; barriers to housing and services; living environment deprivation; and crime. 6 figures and 11 references