SECURITY AND CONTROL ISSUES
The safety and security of evidence is one of the most sensitive parts of any forensic procedure because, let’s face it: Without the proper management and storing of evidence, a (legal) case can’t be made.
The chain of evidence starts immediately when the first responders arrive on the scene of the crime and then follows right through to the final the final verdict read out in open court.
A lot of things can happen between the time evidence is initially collected and when it needs to be used or referred to in court that can either make or break the case. In order to ensure the evidence collected at the scene of a crime remains intact, it must be collected, stored and presented in a fool proof way that confirms each item’s authenticity when first discovered and doesn’t allow for any tampering.
There are certain procedures police and forensic specialists must follow to properly collect evidence from crime scenes and in sometimes from non-criminal incidents that includes the following steps:
All of these steps have evolved over the past several decades and just like all technology that continues to improve, evidence handling and storage has given birth to a variety of new, innovative designs and technological advances that are applied to various different types of tamper proofing evidence.
From images captured by surveillance teams to weapons seized during police raids, each item of evidence comes with a different kind of equipment designed to protect it. Knowing the sensitivity of what is found at the scene of the crime is the first step towards deciding what type of tamper proofing the evidence requires.
The Origins Of Tamper Proofing
The concept of tamper proofing documents isn’t anything new. For the last couple thousand years, wax was used to seal folded pieces of paper. Because wax was so easy to come by, obviously, it was quite easy to unseal and reseal any wax stamp with the receiver in complete oblivion.
Much like any measure taken to enhance the security of important documents or messages, this system was eventually upgraded to begin including a stamp into the hot wax. This new and improved method developed into senders buying unique rings in which he/she would send important and sensitive information with their personalised stamp.
Although this method is no longer used, the concept has never changed. Instead, we now use envelopes that are lined with wax on the overlay that is moistened and pressed against the bottom half of the envelope.
Since this can easily be tampered with, newer and more sophisticated ways have been created to keep confidential information as tamper proof as possible.
The Current Use Of Tamper Proofing
Fast forwarding to present times, wax has now been replaced by tamper evident plastic and metal seals that once opened or broken, can never be duplicated, replaced or resealed.
Tamper resistant methods and products are used by law enforcement agencies, government bodies, health care providers, pharmaceutical companies, manufacturers of specialty goods as well as a wide variety of other organisations that require high levels of safety and security for their products.
Forensic investigators are required by law to ensure that the evidence they collect has a fully transparent audit trail. Since evidence can be of such different nature, methods of safeguarding them against tampering vary widely.
To understand why the use of tamper evident bags are crucial in an investigation, here’s an example of how evidence is processed to safeguard them:
Lethal firearms used to commit crimes:
With crimes such as murder, armed robberies and drive-by shootings constantly on the rise, the necessity to develop and enforce tamper proof methods of collecting and storing the weapons seized is crucial.
The laws that apply to these methods vary from district to district and country to country but the basis remains constant with one goal in mind: To ensure illegal weapons are spotted, collected, stored and presented according to the standard operating procedures of the investigating agency as well as the court.
Weapons, such as handguns, are easy to use because they cause instant fear to the victim(s) and gets the job done quickly. The flip side to this is the fact that using a handgun leaves behind many tell-tale traces of evidence to assist in identifying the culprit, when it was last fired and in many cases, other crimes it was used in.
Clearly, users of violent weapons have adapted to using increasingly creative ways, like wiping fingerprints off (or using gloves), to minimize the chance of leaving behind a DNA trail.
Once investigators get around to finding a weapon, they must take extraordinary measures to ensure they do not end up contaminating the evidence on the weapon or the surroundings where it was found.
The most commonly used methods are:
Capturing the weapon on film and notes: Investigators and first responders take digital and film pictures of the weapon’s positioning and where it was found to document its original state of discovery. In most cases, notes are hand written or recorded orally to add supplementary details.
Use of gloves to recover the weapon: Using disposable gloves ensures that no forensic evidence, such as DNA, finger prints, blood or gun powder residue, is contaminated during the recovery process.
Tamper evident bags and containers: These containers are vital to an investigation ensuring evidence is safely transported and stored. Most investigators and first responders carry a variety of tamper evident bags to store evidence of different size and weight.
Once the evidence is stored safely in the appropriate tamper evident bag, it’s then transported to a storage facility, entered into a database, tagged either by departmental receipts or RFID security tags and finally stored in its newly designated location – sometimes for several decades.
Tamper evident products, such as security seals, bags and locks, aren’t necessary for just investigating criminal behaviour but also for keeping police forces clean of corruption. Unfortunately, in-house tampering does happen occasionally and with today’s crime at a peak and terrorists now recruiting allies in public health and safety organisations, it’s more important that ever to prevent tampering with evidence, obstructing ongoing investigations and commercial processes (manufacturing and distribution).
Constantly improving new methods of keeping evidence tamper proof helps guarantee collectd evidence is presented to a court in the most honest way for a speedy and accurate trial to help keep dangerous criminals off of the street.
The chain of evidence starts immediately when the first responders arrive on the scene of the crime and then follows right through to the final the final verdict read out in open court.
A lot of things can happen between the time evidence is initially collected and when it needs to be used or referred to in court that can either make or break the case. In order to ensure the evidence collected at the scene of a crime remains intact, it must be collected, stored and presented in a fool proof way that confirms each item’s authenticity when first discovered and doesn’t allow for any tampering.
There are certain procedures police and forensic specialists must follow to properly collect evidence from crime scenes and in sometimes from non-criminal incidents that includes the following steps:
- Capturing of photographs at the location where the evidence was found
- The use of protective gloves in the collection of the evidence
- Selection of the most appropriate type of containers that include the most tamper evident security protocols
- Transportation of the evidence to the investigating agency
- Recording the intake of the evidence according to the file and serial number
- The storing of the evidence in the correct storage facility.
All of these steps have evolved over the past several decades and just like all technology that continues to improve, evidence handling and storage has given birth to a variety of new, innovative designs and technological advances that are applied to various different types of tamper proofing evidence.
From images captured by surveillance teams to weapons seized during police raids, each item of evidence comes with a different kind of equipment designed to protect it. Knowing the sensitivity of what is found at the scene of the crime is the first step towards deciding what type of tamper proofing the evidence requires.
The Origins Of Tamper Proofing
The concept of tamper proofing documents isn’t anything new. For the last couple thousand years, wax was used to seal folded pieces of paper. Because wax was so easy to come by, obviously, it was quite easy to unseal and reseal any wax stamp with the receiver in complete oblivion.
Much like any measure taken to enhance the security of important documents or messages, this system was eventually upgraded to begin including a stamp into the hot wax. This new and improved method developed into senders buying unique rings in which he/she would send important and sensitive information with their personalised stamp.
Although this method is no longer used, the concept has never changed. Instead, we now use envelopes that are lined with wax on the overlay that is moistened and pressed against the bottom half of the envelope.
Since this can easily be tampered with, newer and more sophisticated ways have been created to keep confidential information as tamper proof as possible.
The Current Use Of Tamper Proofing
Fast forwarding to present times, wax has now been replaced by tamper evident plastic and metal seals that once opened or broken, can never be duplicated, replaced or resealed.
Tamper resistant methods and products are used by law enforcement agencies, government bodies, health care providers, pharmaceutical companies, manufacturers of specialty goods as well as a wide variety of other organisations that require high levels of safety and security for their products.
Forensic investigators are required by law to ensure that the evidence they collect has a fully transparent audit trail. Since evidence can be of such different nature, methods of safeguarding them against tampering vary widely.
To understand why the use of tamper evident bags are crucial in an investigation, here’s an example of how evidence is processed to safeguard them:
Lethal firearms used to commit crimes:
With crimes such as murder, armed robberies and drive-by shootings constantly on the rise, the necessity to develop and enforce tamper proof methods of collecting and storing the weapons seized is crucial.
The laws that apply to these methods vary from district to district and country to country but the basis remains constant with one goal in mind: To ensure illegal weapons are spotted, collected, stored and presented according to the standard operating procedures of the investigating agency as well as the court.
Weapons, such as handguns, are easy to use because they cause instant fear to the victim(s) and gets the job done quickly. The flip side to this is the fact that using a handgun leaves behind many tell-tale traces of evidence to assist in identifying the culprit, when it was last fired and in many cases, other crimes it was used in.
Clearly, users of violent weapons have adapted to using increasingly creative ways, like wiping fingerprints off (or using gloves), to minimize the chance of leaving behind a DNA trail.
Once investigators get around to finding a weapon, they must take extraordinary measures to ensure they do not end up contaminating the evidence on the weapon or the surroundings where it was found.
The most commonly used methods are:
Capturing the weapon on film and notes: Investigators and first responders take digital and film pictures of the weapon’s positioning and where it was found to document its original state of discovery. In most cases, notes are hand written or recorded orally to add supplementary details.
Use of gloves to recover the weapon: Using disposable gloves ensures that no forensic evidence, such as DNA, finger prints, blood or gun powder residue, is contaminated during the recovery process.
Tamper evident bags and containers: These containers are vital to an investigation ensuring evidence is safely transported and stored. Most investigators and first responders carry a variety of tamper evident bags to store evidence of different size and weight.
Once the evidence is stored safely in the appropriate tamper evident bag, it’s then transported to a storage facility, entered into a database, tagged either by departmental receipts or RFID security tags and finally stored in its newly designated location – sometimes for several decades.
Tamper evident products, such as security seals, bags and locks, aren’t necessary for just investigating criminal behaviour but also for keeping police forces clean of corruption. Unfortunately, in-house tampering does happen occasionally and with today’s crime at a peak and terrorists now recruiting allies in public health and safety organisations, it’s more important that ever to prevent tampering with evidence, obstructing ongoing investigations and commercial processes (manufacturing and distribution).
Constantly improving new methods of keeping evidence tamper proof helps guarantee collectd evidence is presented to a court in the most honest way for a speedy and accurate trial to help keep dangerous criminals off of the street.