This note presents the background to and current progress in a project undertaken by the Council of Europe to develop a European sourcebook on crime and criminal justice statistics. First results from the work in progress are included, highlighting the difficulties of such comparative studies and the need to match statistical data with background definitional information.

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The European Sourcebook on Crime and Criminal Justice Statistics

Safety intelligence as an essential perspective for safety management in the era of Safety 4.0: From a theoretical to a practical framework

A proficiency test is an assessment of the performance of laboratory personnel using samples whose sources are known to the proficiency test administrator but unknown to the examinee. Proficiency tests can help identify reasonable first pass estimates for the rates at which various types of errors occur. It is crucial to obtain error rate estimates because the reliability and probative value of forensic science evidence is inextricably linked to the rates at which examiners make errors. Without such information, legal decision makers have no scientifically meaningful way of thinking about the risk of false identification and false non-identification associated with forensic reports.

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Proficiency Tests to Estimate Error Rates in the Forensic Sciences

Legal disclosure issues have predominantly focused upon what evidence the prosecution provided or withheld from the defence. In this paper we expand the concept of disclosure to wider contexts in which disclosure failures may result in miscarriages of justice. We introduce a conceptual model of ‘forensic disclosure’ which addresses what information should be disclosed to forensic examiners, as well as what information should be disclosed by forensic examiners. This paper presents a holistic overview of the dynamic interactions of four categories of stakeholders: forensic services, investigation, legal, and external stakeholders. We discuss the effective implementation of the forensic disclosure model by addressing five questions: when? What? How? Who? and why? should information be best given to, and by, forensic examiners in order to increase the quality of forensic decision making and to minimise bias.

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The forensic disclosure model: What should be disclosed to, and by, forensic experts?

Only a small part of forensic science activities scattered across criminal justice systems is the object of scientific scrutiny, and is taken into account when evaluating the added-value brought by this discipline. Even in its more restricted definition, forensic science faces many embarrassing questions about its capacity to provide valid and reliably interpreted information in court. The inflation of control mechanisms increases costs and reduces the scope or availability of forensic information. The viability of forensic science, viewed through this lens, is questioned. To address this challenge, it is imperative to validly express forensic science contributions that are otherwise diluted across earlier processes. These include abductive and inductive species of inferences used in crime investigation, crime analysis and criminal intelligence. The ‘scientificity’ of these processes may be questioned, but it is not contested that they largely determine the global outcome of justice systems. As a result, ...

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Expressing the value of forensic science in policing

For the past decade, the National Institute of Forensic Science (NIFS) has been involved in and committed to raising the awareness of forensic intelligence in Australia. In this context, a discussion paper was written and distributed across Australia and New Zealand covering forensic intelligence principles and offering a ‘quick reference’ guide. In addition, NIFS jointly facilitated a set of papers on forensic intelligence that was published in the Australian Journal of Forensic Sciences. The implementation of forensic intelligence requires substantial planning and adaptation within an organization. There must be commitment within an agency to refocus outcomes so that crime prevention and disruption become priorities along with the traditional focus on the court. This implies many changes including a shift from a single case focus to a multi-case focus and a breaking down of existing interdisciplinary silos. At a time of budget restrictions, the resources to implement these changes are often diff...

The Intelligent Use of Forensic Data: An Introduction to the Principles

Dismantling the justice silos: Flowcharting the role and expertise of forensic science, forensic medicine and allied health in adult sexual assault investigations

In 2011, the Australia New Zealand Policing Advisory Agency National Institute of Forensic Science Australia New Zealand (ANZPAA NIFS) ran the End to End Forensic Identification Process Project: Phase 1 (E2E1) to identify bottlenecks and inefficiencies across the end-to-end forensic process in Australia and make recommendations as to how these might be addressed. The study concentrated on the analysis of DNA and fingerprint evidence in burglary offences, benchmarking current forensic processes and performance across all eight Australian States and Territories (jurisdictions). Following a positive response, overwhelming support was given for the project to be repeated four years later in order to measure any improvements. End to End Phase 2 (E2E2) was conducted in the same eight Australian jurisdictions with the same sampling areas, across the same length of time as E2E1. The aim was to enable agencies to compare their own data from the previous phase and establish, amongst other things, whether implemented recommendations from E2E1 project had any significant impact. Data was collected for over 7,500 burglaries nationally. This paper presents the findings of the 2015 study as well as comparative analyses between 2011 and 2015. Finally, we discuss the measures taken, whether legal, technological or organisational, that are likely contributors to the performance improvements.

Eva Bruenisholz

Papers

The Intelligent Use of Forensic Data: An Introduction to the Principles

Dismantling the justice silos: Flowcharting the role and expertise of forensic science, forensic medicine and allied health in adult sexual assault investigations

Benchmarking forensic volume crime performance in Australia between 2011 and 2015.

Repetitive deliberate fires: Development and validation of a methodology to detect series.

Deliberate fires: From data to intelligence.