DETECTION OF CRIME

The process of uncovering criminal activity (or verifying reported crime) and acquiring evidence in order to identify and prosecute its perpetrators. Crime detection and its prevention is a very crucial aim of the police world wide. It involves not only the deployment of personal on patrol duties but also to detect crime. The police is committed to implore all measures both proactive and reactive to ensure a safe and peaceful environment for all.

Crime prevention is a term describing techniques used for reducing crime and criminal activities as well as deterring crime and criminals. It is applied specifically to efforts made by governments to reduce crime, enforce the law, and maintain criminal justice.

AGENCIES OF CRIME DETECTION

There are two basic types of Crime Detection agencies namely:

Informal Crime Detection Agencies

Formal Crime Detection Agencies

Informal Crime Detection Agencies

Crime detection that is carried out without any defined codes and procedures such as

Families

Relatives

Colleagues

Friends

All the above said informal crime detection agencies may also called as psychological crime detection agencies.

Formal Crime Detection Agencies

There are a number of formal crime detection agencies which are professional in their work as well.

National Agencies

Federal Investigation Agency FIA

Crime Investigation Agency CIA

Crime Investigation Department    CID

Inter Services Intelligence ISI

Counter Terrorism Department         CTD

Bomb Disposal Squad                       BDS

International Agencies

United Nation Asia and Far East Institution           UNAFEI

United Nation Organization Drug Control              UNODC

United Nation International Children Endovement Fund   UNICEF

International Police           INTERPOL

Europe Police          EUROPOL

METHODS AND TECHENIQUES OF DECTATION 

To a catch a criminal, a range of scientific techniques are used to establish an identity and process evidence. Even what seems like a flawless plan can leave behind an incriminating fiber, drop of blood or piece of hair. When this happens, forensics can piece together the clues that identify motive and possible suspects. In this article, you will learn about the different techniques and tools that the police use to catch the bad guys. 

Finger Printing

Fingerprints are a unique piece of identification for every person as no one has the same fingerprint not even identical twins. The prints that people leave behind have been used for more than 100 years to prove if someone was at a crime scene or if they had held a specific weapon in their hands. When a crime is committed, one of the first things that are done is a dusting for fingerprints. They will concentrate on prints found on dead bodies, murder weapons, drinking glasses, doorknobs, windows, and other objects. Even if a faint print is found, authorities can use laser image enhancement to create a clearer picture. 

DNA Test

For the criminal that likes to pin his wrongdoing on others, DNA testing allows forensic scientists to prove or disprove that a suspect is connected to a certain crime. Everyone possesses unique DNA just as they do fingerprints. Even the smallest of samples can point the police in the right direction. It could be a single strand of hair or a drop of saliva. Researchers can learn a lot about a person with these items. 

The first reports of DNA profiling came in 1984 when Sir Alec Jeffreys worked at the University of Leicester in England. What he documented would lead to the foundation of several national DNA databases. It was until 1987 that Jeffrey's genetic fingerprinting was a commercial technique that the public could use. A chemical company called Imperial Chemical Industries (or ICI) established a blood-testing center in England. 

A couple of cases where DNA testing played a significant role include:

During the 1950s, Anna Anderson claimed to have been Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia. After her death in the 1980s, samples of her tissue that had been stored at a hospital after a past medical procedure were tested using DNA fingerprinting. They revealed that she was not related to the Romanovs. 

The first person in the United States to be convicted as a result of DNA evidence was Tommy Lee Andrews a rapist from Florida. He had raped a woman during a burglary and was convicted in 1987 and given 22 years in prison. 

Ballistics 

Every gun is made with their own unique 'fingerprint', which are the marks made on a bullet when it leave the barrel of the weapon. Specialists are trained in the study of ballistics to compare bullets that have been used in a crime by looking under a microscope. They use the markings on a bullet to learn about the associated weapon. When an identical match is found, it tells investigators more about the person who may have fired the weapon.

METHODS OF DETECTION 

Typewritten Documents

As the author of a monograph entitled “The Typewriter and its Relation to Crime,” Holmes was of course an innovator in the analysis of typewritten documents. In the one case involving a typewriter, A Case of Identity (1891), only Holmes realized the importance of the fact that all the letters received by Mary Sutherland from Homer Angel were typewritten — even his name is typed and no signature is applied. This observation leads Holmes to the culprit. By obtaining a typewritten note from his suspect, Holmes brilliantly analyses the idiosyncrasies of the man’s typewriter. In the United States, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) started a Document Section soon after its crime lab opened in 1932. Holmes’s work preceded this by forty years.

Handwriting

Conan Doyle, a true believer in handwriting analysis, exaggerates Holmes’s abilities to interpret documents. Holmes is able to tell gender, make deductions about the character of the writer, and even compare two samples of writing and deduce whether the persons are related. This is another area where Holmes has written a monograph (on the dating of documents). Handwritten documents figure in nine stories. 

Footprints

Holmes also uses footprint analysis to identify culprits throughout his fictional career, from the very first story to the 57th story (The Lion’s Mane published in 1926). Fully 29 of the 60 stories include footprint evidence. The Boscobel Valley Mystery is solved almost entirely by footprint analysis. Holmes analyses footprints on quite a variety of surfaces: clay soil, snow, carpet, dust, mud, blood, ashes, and even a curtain. Yet another one of Sherlock Holmes’s monographs is on the topic (“The tracing of footsteps, with some remarks upon the uses of Plaster of Paris as a preserver of impresses”).

Ciphers

Sherlock Holmes solves a variety of ciphers. In The “Gloria Scott” he deduces that in the message that frightens Old Trevor every third word is to be read. A similar system was used in the American Civil War. It was also how young listeners of the Captain Midnight radio show in the 1940s used their decoder rings to get information about upcoming programs. In The Valley of Fear Holmes has a man planted inside Professor Moriarty’s organization. When he receives an encoded message Holmes must first realize that the cipher uses a book. After deducing which book, he is able to retrieve the message.

Image Credit: Sherlock Holmes in “The Man with the Twisted Lip”, which appeared in The Strand Magazine in December, 1891; Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

This is exactly how Benedict Arnold sent information to the British about General George Washington’s troop movements. Holmes’s most successful use of cryptology occurs in The Dancing Men. His analysis of the stick figure men left as messages is done by frequency analysis, starting with “e” as the most common letter. Conan Doyle is again following Poe who earlier used the same idea in The Gold Bug (1843). Holmes’s monograph on cryptology analyses 160 separate ciphers.

Dogs

Conan Doyle provides us with an interesting array of dog stories and analyses. The most famous line in all the sixty stories, spoken by Inspector Gregory in Silver Blaze, is “The dog did nothing in the night-time.” When Holmes directs Gregory’s attention to “the curious incident of the dog in the night-time,” Gregory is puzzled by this enigmatic clue. Only Holmes seems to realize that the dog should have done something. Why did the dog make no noise when the horse, Silver Blaze, was led out of the stable in the dead of night? Inspector Gregory may be slow to catch on, but Sherlock Holmes is immediately suspicious of the horse’s trainer, John Straker.