ABSTRACT

"Evidence management has become a crucial component for the law enforcement community. I truly believe this book is essential in assisting criminal investigators and a valuable resource for managing evidence."—Jeremiah Sullivan, Chairman, Board of Directors, Texas Division of the International Association for Identification; Senior Crime Scene Specialist (Retired). Austin Police Department

As technology and technical applications continue to advance in the forensic sciences, the undertakings at crime scenes have become even more critical.  Crime scene investigators must ensure that evidence is properly collected, document, packaged, and stored in a manner that maximizes the ability of laboratories to derive meaning and results from the evidence provided them.

Forensic Evidence Management: From the Crime Scene to the Courtroom provides best practices policies for forensic science entities and their employees to maintain chain of custody and evidence integrity throughout the course of evidence collection, storage, preservation, and processing.

The focus of the book will be to address the issues related with evidence handling and analysis inside the forensic laboratory, in particular, and to offer best practices and guidelines from leading forensic experts in the field. Forms of evidence covered include biological, chemical, trace, firearm, toolmark, fingerprint, and a host of others types recovered at crime scenes. The book concludes with a chapter on ethics, bias, and ethical practices in evidence handling in the field and laboratory analysis.

Test Bank and PowerPointTM slides are available for download from the Taylor & Francis ancillary Web site for qualifying course adopters.

chapter 1|8 pages

Crime Scene Dynamics

ByMichael Kessler, Casie Parish Fisher

chapter 2|10 pages

Evidence Tracking and Secure Storage

ByCassandra Velasquez

chapter 3|10 pages

Evidence Management of Fingerprints

ByJack Flanders

chapter 4|14 pages

Biological Evidence

Collection, Transportation and Preservation
ByNathalie Zahra

chapter 5|12 pages

Sexual Assault Evidence

Collection Techniques
ByLaurie Charles

chapter 6|20 pages

Evidence Management Best Practices in Medicolegal Death Investigation

ByJason Wiersema, Michal Pierce, Allison Woody, Michelle Sanford

chapter 7|24 pages

General Principles and Techniques of Trace Evidence Collection

ByPatrick Buzzini, Jorn Chi-Chung Yu

chapter 8|18 pages

Firearms Evidence

Documentation, Collection and Preservation
ByJay M Stuart

chapter 9|8 pages

Introduction to Drug Evidence Handling Procedures

ByJasmine Drake

chapter 10|10 pages

Evidence Collection and Management for Forensic Toxicology Analysis

ByAshraf Mozayani

chapter 11|6 pages

Questioned Documents

ByClaire Williamson

chapter 12|10 pages

Forensic Digital Evidence

ByZeno Geradts

chapter 13|12 pages

Evidence Collection for Arson Cases

ByKenneth Wilson

chapter 14|8 pages

Forensic Art and Imaging

Best Practices for Evidence Handling
ByCatyana R Falsetti, Anthony B Falsetti, Sandra R Enslow

chapter 15|16 pages

Ethical Issues, Bias and Other Challenges to Forensic Evidence Management

ByCarol Henderson, Ryan Swafford, Adam H Itzkowitz