ALT-1 A Career in Crime Scene Investigation
Try to imagine the following situation. At 1:15 AM, your next-door neighbor gets into an argument. Then, seconds later, you hear two gunshots, one after the other. Following the shots, several hurried footsteps walking away, car opening and closing, someone starts the car, and drives away. Worried by what you heard, you go see, the front door is opened and you see your next-door neighbor is lying on the floor, in the living room, dead. Some of the people, who are perhaps going to investigate your neighbor's murder, are perhaps going to be forensic scientist, or criminalist.
The science of forensics, or criminalistics, as it is refered to at times, "is the application of scientific disciplines to the law" (Lyle 8) or "the application of science to the investigation and prosecution of crime." (Trimm 4) In order to be able to convict someone for a murder, your next-door neighbor, let's say, there are several different things that need to be done, scientifically speaking, to help the law do its job.
In a murder investigation, there might be more people involved with the investigation than with the crime or suspects on the investigators' list. But each person involved in this investigation is as important as the next. There are quite a few, but only a few will be discussed in this article.
One of the well-known jobs is the crime-scene investigator. He or she is in charge of the crime scene. He or she must visit the crime scene and oversee and protect any or all the evidence until it reaches the crime lab. The crime-scene investigator also overlooks the work of crime-scene photographers, whose job it is to photograph any evidence where it was found.
There is also a firearm examiner. The job of the firearm examiner is to identify the type of firearm was used, and compare and identify any bullets or shell casings that were left at the crime scene. The firearm examiner may also need to look for and identify any residue that came from a firearm. This may all be very helpful if, let's say, your next-door neighbor was shot with a revolver.These two examples are part of the criminalist. However, there are some with specialties, such as an anthropologist, or toxicologist. A forensic anthropologist is the person who analyses the bones of the victim of a crime.
If there is a burn car, with the bones of someone, whom might have been killed, the investigators will call a forensic anthropologist. A toxicologist is a scientist, who specializes in poisons. Therefore, a forensic toxicologist is a scientist, who is called to identify the poison that was used, if this was the method used to kill someone, such as the next-door neighbor. These are only three examples of people who might be called upon in an investigation or as expert witness in a trial.
Each has a different job to do, but none are less important than the next. Their goal in the end is the same: To discover the identity of the murderer and bring him or her to justice. The difference is their focus, which helps all of them to narrow down the aspects they have to focus on. In several ways, this may help some of the cases to come a little quicker to justice.
