As global criminology evolves, new questions arise. How can policymakers and law enforcement agencies leverage criminological insights to formulate effective crime prevention strategies? How do international collaborations in forensic science contribute to a more robust global criminal justice framework? Cases on Forensic and Criminological Science for Criminal Detection and Avoidance beckons readers into the fascinating world of forensic science and criminology. Distinguished authors span multi-level experience as practitioners, researchers, and academics, and they examine the multifaceted dimensions of criminal detection and avoidance. Contributors, hailing from globally recognized institutions such as the British Criminology Association, Chartered Society of Forensic Sciences, and American Criminology Association, navigate the complex intersections of forensic science and criminology, exploring the latest criminal detection and avoidance advancements. Moreover, the book examines the practical implications of research findings. This book is ideal for academics, practitioners, policymakers, students, and professionals in criminology, forensic science, and criminal justice seeking a comprehensive exploration of contemporary criminal detection and avoidance issues.

Detection Avoidance in Homicides: Debates, Explanations and Responses presents theory and research on how offenders avoid detection and the challenges and opportunities these efforts pose to investigators. From a scholarly perspective, the book presents a continuing history of research on detection avoidance by offenders, discusses the features of complex death investigations involving detection avoidance, and critiques the current frameworks used for conceptualizing these behaviors. Dr. Ferguson focuses on the key debates in the literature, argues for collaborations between researchers and practitioners to remedy siloing, and explores the reality of detection avoidance in homicides as complex and multifaceted. While detection avoidance behaviors have the potential to negatively impact sudden death investigations and frustrate criminal investigations specifically, their use also creates broader problems. These include many problematic effects on family members of the deceased, police officers, police agencies and the communities they serve. Offenders choosing to use detection avoidance behaviors challenges the efficient use of public resources, puts at risk the successful adjudication of homicides, and creates a public safety issue. The book explains detection avoidance using learning, situational, individual and gender-based theories, including proposing whether it may be a form of coercive control used by intimate partner abusers. Finally, how detection avoidance by offenders is recognized and responded to in sudden death investigations is addressed, with specific reference to useful examples of policy reform implemented by various police agencies internationally. Providing research and theory to explain detection avoidance and best practice for responding to it, this book will be of great interest to students and scholars of criminology, forensic science and psychology. It will also be useful to professionals working with homicide offenders.

The current policing landscape has seen the rise in serious and organized crime across the globe. Criminals are innovating in real-time leveraging cyber, social media, enhanced surveillance to support their activities. In so doing, the criminal landscape has become transnational whereby collaborative networks have flourished thereby creating greater complexity and novel threats for the international policing community. As new threats to local, regional, national and global security are emerging, leveraging science and technology innovations has become more important. Advances in big data analytics, cyber forensics, surveillance, modeling and simulation has led to a more data driven, hypothesis generated and model informed approach. Novel science and technology innovations are presented in this edited book to provide insights and pathways that challenges the emerging and complex criminal threat landscape by supporting policing operations.

It is startling to read how few sexual offenses are reported in a year; even more shocking to see how few reports lead to an arrest. Research on effective responses to sexual offenses is much needed and ongoing. This edited book presents the current state of research on investigative techniques used in sex crime investigations, and the operational challenges and issues that arise in these investigations. Including an international cohort of scholars from various academic backgrounds, it reviews current efforts in key areas, synthesizing the research to make recommendations for the improvement of investigative practices and the criminal justice system’s response to sexual offenses. Each chapter includes a brief introduction to the topic, a review of the research, and a discussion of the key points relevant to investigators and researchers as they move forward. The book is broken down into four themes: suspect prioritization and identification techniques, investigative interviewing, operational challenges and issues, and the investigation of specific types of sex crimes. With its broad coverage and international scope, this volume fills the gap in knowledge for investigators working on sex crimes cases. With its easy-to-read style and clear analysis of the research, this is the perfect volume for investigators and law enforcement officers, policy makers and researchers, and students in criminology and criminal justice, forensic psychology, and victim services.

How and when did forensic science originate in the UK? This question demands our attention because our understanding of present-day forensic science is vastly enriched through gaining an appreciation of what went before. A History of Forensic Science is the first book to consider the wide spectrum of influences which went into creating the discipline in Britain in the first part of the twentieth century. This book offers a history of the development of forensic sciences, centred on the UK, but with consideration of continental and colonial influences, from around 1880 to approximately 1940. This period was central to the formation of a separate discipline of forensic science with a distinct professional identity and this book charts the strategies of the new forensic scientists to gain an authoritative voice in the courtroom and to forge a professional identity in the space between forensic medicine, scientific policing, and independent expert witnessing. In so doing, it improves our understanding of how forensic science developed as it did. This book is essential reading for academics and students engaged in the study of criminology, the history of forensic science, science and technology studies and the history of policing.

Crime Lab Report compiles the most relevant and popular articles that appeared in this ongoing periodical between 2007 and 2017. Articles have been categorized by theme to serve as chapters, with an introduction at the beginning of each chapter and a description of the events that inspired each article. The author concludes the compilation with a reflection on Crime Lab Report, the retired periodical, and the future of forensic science as the 21st Century unfolds. Intended for forensic scientists, prosecutors, defense attorneys and even students studying forensic science or law, this compilation provides much needed information on the topics at hand. - Presents a comprehensive look 'behind the curtain' of the forensic sciences from the viewpoint of someone working within the field - Educates practitioners and laboratory administrators, providing talking points to help them respond intelligently to questions and criticisms, whether on the witness stand or when meeting with politicians and/or policymakers - Captures an important period in the history of forensic science and criminal justice in America

Biosocial criminology is an interdisciplinary field that aims to explain crime and antisocial behavior by exploring both biological factors and environmental factors. Since the mapping of the human genome, scientists have been able to study the biosocial causes of human behaviour with the greatest specificity. After decades of almost exclusive sociological focus, criminology has undergone a paradigm shift where the field is more interdisciplinary and this book combines perspectives from criminology and sociology with contributions from fields such as genetics, neuropsychology, and evolutionary psychology. The Routledge International Handbook of Biosocial Criminology is the largest and most comprehensive work of its kind, and is organized into five sections that collectively span the terrain of biosocial research on antisocial behavior. Bringing together leading experts from around the world, this book considers the criminological, genetic and neuropsychological foundations of offending, as well as the legal and criminal justice applications of biosocial criminological theory. The handbook is essential reading for students, researchers, and practitioners from across the social, behavioural, and natural sciences who are engaged in the study of antisocial behaviour.

The real heroes of television crime shows in the twenty-first century are no longer police detectives but forensic technologies. The immense popularity of high-tech crime television shows has changed the way in which crime scene work is viewed. The term 'CSI-effect' was coined to signify a situation where people's views and practices have been influenced by such media representations, e.g. judges and jurors putting more weight on forensic evidence that has been produced with high-tech tools - in particular, DNA evidence - than on other kinds of evidence. While considerable scholarly attention has been paid to examining the CSI effect on publics, jurors, judges, and police investigators, prisoners' views on forensic technologies and policing have been under-explored. Drawing on a research sample of over 50 interviews carried out with prisoners in Portugal and Austria, this groundbreaking book shows how prisoners view crime scene traces, how they understand crime scene technologies, and what effect they attribute to the existence of large police databases on their own lives, careers, and futures. Through critically engaging with STS, sociological and criminological perspectives on the use of DNA technologies within the criminal justice system, this work provides the reader with valuable insights into the effect of different legal, political, discursive, and historical configurations on how crime scene technologies are utilized by the police and related to by convicted offenders.

This book offers an analytical review of the state of knowledge on elderly sexual abuse and presents new data that will confront some of the accepted ideas and some of the myths associated with this specific form of sexual violence. Sexual violence research has often considered children to be the most vulnerable population. However, another population just as vulnerable to sexual abuse but often overlooked by researchers, is the elderly. Evidence shows that elderly victims are more likely to be attacked by strangers, most likely to be victimized in their own homes, and are usually less capable of resisting a physical attack. Drawing on a large and representative dataset, Elderly Sexual Abuse offers a full and theoretically informed picture of the offenders and their crimes. In addition to a specific chapter devoted to prevention and criminal investigation, the book also connects research to practice, exploring what the findings mean for professionals working with these cases and the criminal justice system. This book is essential reading for all those engaged with sexual violence, victimization, elder abuse, and vulnerable populations.

An accessible guide for students across a variety of disciplines who are studying forensic evidence throughout the criminal justice system. Containing up to date and classic case studies, photos and examples, it assumes no prior scientific knowledge to ensure the discussion is clear but comprehensive.