Home Burglaries and Forensic Evidence - Term Paper Example

Home Burglaries and Forensic Evidence ID Number: of School CMRJ-499 July 14, 2011 Word count = 1,046 Abstract This paper examines the role of forensic evidence with regards to the crime of home burglaries. Current judicial process and police investigative work does not give much weight to the use of forensic scientific methods in identifying suspects, making arrests, filing for the prosecution of the case and eventual conviction of the crime for the perpetrators. Research on the role of forensic evidence in solving residential burglaries showed it has little or no impact at all on the actual criminal case outcomes. On the contrary, eyewitness accounts and victims reports were the prime sources of information which in turn led to referrals. Use of forensic evidence is not very widespread in the criminal justice process from initial reporting to final verdicts or outcomes as people (judge, jury and the police investigators themselves) are not in very familiar territory with how to best maximize its advantages in identifying criminals by placing them at the crime scene when the crime was committed. Further, even the esteemed National Academy of Sciences has questioned the scientific validity of some fields in forensic science regarding the accuracy and reliability of test results pertaining to fingerprinting, bite marks and tooth marks identification as having much probative value in the courts. Keywords: residential burglaries, forensic science, arrest, prosecution, conviction Introduction Property crimes make up slightly over 75% of all crimes committed in the United States of America and burglaries constitute approximately 25% of those figures. The average loss of a home burglary is about $ 1,725 and 70% of all burglaries were committed in homes. A curious and perhaps interesting fact is that most burglaries occurred during the daytime, at between 6 am and 6 pm, which is contrary to common belief that burglaries happen at night. Most burglars (34%) entered through the front door (12% of burglaries are due to unlocked doors) because people are careless, too trusting or plainly not security conscious. In the U.S., a burglary happens every 15 seconds and burglars spend on average just 8-12 minutes inside the burgled home (FBI, n.d., p. 1). These crime statistics are certainly very alarming and the next logical question to ask is what is being done about it by the concerned authorities? Discussion Burglaries are crimes against property and may merit a lower focus of attention from law enforcement authorities who are sometimes stretched to the limit due to constraints to the resources available to them. Nevertheless, most residential burglaries went unsolved with low solution and conviction rates. The figures show only 8.2% of reported cases had resulted in arrests and a dismally 3.2% of referred cases producing a conviction (Baskin and Sommers, 2011, p. 70). These low figures should be a big reason for concern because it affords criminal persons the opportunity to become repeat offenders if they are not caught and prosecuted. In other words, burglars are emboldened as it indicated the crime does pay for them. According to the aforementioned authors, their research study indicated part of the reason on a low conviction rate is the minimal use of forensic evidence in burglary crime investigations. Put differently, forensic science was used only as an auxiliary or secondary evidence in trials. Investigators relied more on eyewitness identification and victims accounts (ibid. p. 83). This finding points to a disturbing trend among police agencies and perhaps even the entire criminal judicial system to rely more on securing peoples cooperation when other but perhaps more reliable means of identification of burglars are possible. In 90% of burglaries, a forensic evidence was left by the criminal or available on the crime scene yet these evidences were used in only 1% of all the cases being brought to court (ibid. p. 2). This kind of skewed non-use of forensics partly explains the extremely low conviction rates even if the previous studies on burglaries using geographic offender profiling indicated most burglars live within the same neighborhoods or in close proximity thereof, commit burglaries within or near areas where they routinely do their non-crime related day-to-day activities or along travel lines that they use quite frequently. What all this means is that it is quite easy to identify a criminal not only based on eyewitness accounts but on other crime-solving investigative techniques such as the use of forensic science like DNA evidence, fingerprints, palm prints, teeth marks, etc. A tendency by crime investigators to rely on eyewitness and victims accounts is also sort of treading on thin ground because there are many situations in which people are afraid to talk even if they were witness to a burglary. Criminals like burglars are repeat offenders; their success relies on committing crimes in which there are no witnesses to identify them. Investigators must find other ways of being able to correctly identify the perpetrators such as noticing distinctive marks caused by burglary tools in forcible entry (Becker, 2009, p. 198). Gathering of forensic evidence at the crime scene is one way of reducing reliance on eyewitnesses since most of the time, burglaries are crimes committed in secret. Investigators must be trained to look for forensic evidence and preserve the crime scene by securing areas of the crime to prevent contamination. Additionally, they must be trained that there is a close correlation between the type of crime and the type of physical evidence when investigating a particular crime such as burglaries to know what to look for (Lee and Harris, 2000, p. 8). It is surprising that the United States has a very low rate of using forensics evidence. The police forces of other countries such as the United Kingdom have placed greater reliance on forensic evidence to lower their burglary rates and improve solution rates as well. This is because burglary is a repeat crime and collecting forensic evidence is a good way to prevent a crime like burglaries (Sherman, 2002, p. 257). Their crime prevention scheme include a wide array of tactics to increase the risks of identification and capture to burglars such as using the silent security alarms, closed-circuit television and devices that collect forensic evidence. Incidentally, the forensics field of fingerprint analysis led to only 14% of a suspects identification in burglary cases that resulted in just 4% of arrests but with zero convictions. In their study, Baskins and Sommers showed that fingerprint evidence is not a significant factor or predictor of any arrests for the burglaries (2011, p. 78). On the contrary, the small number of convictions in burglary cases were obtained primarily through a suspects own admission or by plea bargaining agreements (ibid. p. 80). Crime fighting in the United States is being in a sort of a wringer and pulled in opposite directions. For one, laboratory analysis of forensics evidence gathered from crime scenes is quite expensive. The National Academy of Sciences has cast some doubts on the accuracy and reliability of fingerprinting as lacking the rigors of scientific analysis (ibid. p. 83) and forensics have high error rates (Koppl et al., 2008, p. 141). Conclusion This stance has put a damper on the science of fingerprint analysis in which both the judge and jury tend to give more weight to eyewitness and victims accounts than to the direct forensic evidence gathered at crime scenes and presented during the trial stage. All the people involved in the entire criminal justice system must familiarize themselves with the benefits of using forensic science that promises the ideal of “scientific certainty” of placing the criminal at the crime scene and be able to convict without the shadow of a doubt whatsoever. References Baskins, D. & Sommers, I. (2011, January 7). Solving residential burglaries in the United States: the impact of forensic evidence on case outcomes. International Journal of Police Science and Management, 13 (1), 70-86. Becker, R. F. (2009). Criminal investigation. Sudbury, MA, USA: Jones and Bartlett. Federal Bureau of Investigation (no date). Uniform Crime Reports. Retrieved from http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/ucr Koppl, R. G., Kurzban, R. & Kobilinsky, L. (2009). Epistemics for forensics. Episteme: A Journal of Social Epistemology, 5 (2), 141-159. Lee, H. C. & Harris, H. A. (2000). Physical evidence in forensic science. Tucson, AZ, USA: Lawyers and Judges Publishing Company, Incorporated. Sherman, L. W. (2002). Evidence-based crime prevention. Oxon, UK: Routledge. Read More