Primary vs Secondary

Marking Evidence at Crime Scenes: Developing a System

One of the most basic—and most important—tasks a crime scene officer has is locating, collecting, packaging, and marking evidence found at a crime scene. In this article, I‘ll address the marking of evidence collected. No matter the type of scene, you must carefully mark and record every piece of evidence you find. This may seem pretty straightforward, but it becomes more complicated when you have multiple crime scenes or incidents. Then the question becomes, how do you coordinate evidence marking across crime scenes? By developing a system for marking evidence before you arrive at your crime scenes, you will avoid confusion and build stronger cases. There are many possible systems that you can use to mark evidence. Some departments use a combination of numbers and letters, or include a breakdown that specifies locations such as bedroom...