Communications of the ACM
What Do Police Know About Digital Evidence?
In today's criminal justice system, a PlayStation and iPhone are just as important pieces of evidence as eyewitness accounts. Yet, there isn't a strong understanding as to how police officers identify digital evidence — everything from a laptop to a smart television — in the field.
Thomas Holt, professor of criminal justice at Michigan State University, is among the early researchers to examine how well police officers recognize digital evidence at a crime scene, and what they do with it.
"Digital evidence isn't part of the core police academy training, which is the baseline training all police recruits have when first going into the field," Holt says. "Since this training isn't consistently provided to them, how well would they recognize these critical pieces of evidence?"
Holt is an author of "Exploring Digital Evidence Recognition Among Officers and Troopers In a Sample of a State Police Force," published in Policing: An International Journal, based on a survey of 258 active state troopers and officers in the field. The survey gave the police a crime scene scenario in which they responded to a domestic violence call. From there, the police answered how they would respond and collect specific evidence on the crime scene.
The report's key findings:
1.) Most — but not all — officers know who's the expert to call for support.
- 70% of the respondents said that they should contact the district prosecutor's office to ask what to do in a specific crime incident.
- 88% of officers said they knew who in that office is the right person.
"We can see that there's fairly consistent messaging around who to call in the event of a question," Holt says. "With digital evidence, it's difficult to know what to seize, or how to interact with it in a way that won't affect the information it holds. It's critical that all officers are aware of who the expert is to guide them in a delicate crime scene."
2.) Not all officers know exactly what to look for.
- 76% said digital evidence could be anywhere in the scene.
- 43% said either on the wingspan of the suspect and victim or on the suspects or victim's person.
"We found that those who were familiar with digital evidence and seizing procedures were more likely to have responded recently to a scene where digital evidence was present," Holt says. "One big takeaway for us is that situational experience can help break down barriers and improve how police understand what to look for and where."
3.) In the age of tech and smart homes, infinite pieces of evidence lay around the scene.
- 50% of respondents said to immediately seize all electronic items
- 91% said to secure mobile devices
- 90% said to secure any laptops
- 89% said to secure media storage devices
- 70% said to secure Amazon Echo/smart speaker
- 41% said to take the television
"There's a greater degree of recognition of what to do in the scene than I would have thought, like grabbing the Echo, the router, or the TV," Holt says. "It's a very positive sign to see police knowing that storage devices are of great importance because any crimes that involve some sort of online activity or transactions — such as cyber security or child pornography — could have evidence."
Holt sees degrees of digital evidence recognition — and not varying across different age groups — as a positive sign, but there's work to be done.
Additional authors of the Policing: An International Journal work are Shelly Clevenger of Illinois State University, and Jordana Navarro of The Citadel.
"Our hope is that our research acts as baseline information for state agencies across the country," Holt says. "The huge takeaway or suggestion would be increasing training and awareness. We want them to start asking how well they train cadets to recognize devices in the field, what to do with it and how to improve as technology advances."
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