An Investigation into Crime Scene Documentation of Murder Cases in Isfahan

The process of documentation is an essential activity in crime scene investigation; hence, the researchers in this paper studied the process of documentation, particularly for scenes of murder.

At first, a detailed description through desk review of relevant literature was provided for the main concepts of the issue such as crime scene and its various types, crime scene investigation methods, the nature and purpose of documentation, crime scene investigation team, and its relationship with other contributing factors such as prosecutor and forensic agent. Then, by using the method of field study and a prepared checklist, the documents of murder scenes provided by investigation teams in Isfahan were examined.

The results demonstrated that the scene investigation process, particularly documentation process studied in this paper, is far away from the accepted standards of this field, and the reasons of such a status are poor training on documentation techniques, lack of knowledge and awareness of modern documentation practices, lack of supervision over the activities of documentation team, unfamiliarity with scene investigation forms, and lack of precision in filling the forms. Furthermore, there is a poor coordination among three involved organizations, including forensic Medicine Organization, police, and the judiciary system due to such reasons as poor sense of duty in involved individuals, and failure to supervise the performance of these institutions at the end of any scene investigation.

Providing adequate and continuous training, monitoring the prepared documentation, having attention and focus on the preparation of documentation (especially forms), and finally the use of appropriate equipment can lead to the reduction in the inadvertent seizure of accused, escape of real criminals from the justice, and People's distrust of institutions like the police and the judiciary in Isfahan province.