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This study replicates previous research that investigated the influence of rapid identification information on the interpretation of a crime scene conducted with English crime scene investigators (CSIs). Given the special circumstances under which CSIs in one country operate, the present study investigates the robustness and generalisability of the previous findings by studying whether identical decision-making phenomena are found in a replication study within a different police environment. Dutch CSIs (N = 65) participated in the same study and results are compared with the English findings. The utility of the replication study is reflected in both the revealed robustness and differences in the findings. First, the results demonstrate the robustness of the previous finding that ID information influenced the interpretation of the crime scene, even more when this information was provided after CSIs had constructed a provisional scenario. Secondly, this study revealed differences in decision-making: English CSIs used ID information to make efficient decisions by prioritising traces with direct progression opportunities for the case and disregarding those without direct opportunities, which led to a form of tunnel vision, namely the ignorance of the involvement of a second offender. Dutch CSIs showed to be less prone to bias towards traces that produced database matches. Dutch CSIs seemed to be more focused on the relation of the trace with the crime, while English CSIs are more focused on the database match. Consequently, important information was overlooked. We question whether the emphasis on efficiency in England goes at the expense of the quality of an investigation.

Currently, promising new tools are under development that will enable crime scene investigators to analyze fingerprints or DNA-traces at the crime scene. While these technologies could help to find a perpetrator early in the investigation, they may also strengthen confirmation bias when an incorrect scenario directs the investigation this early. In this study, 40 experienced Crime scene investigators (CSIs) investigated a mock crime scene to study the influence of rapid identification technologies on the investigation. This initial study shows that receiving identification information during the investigation results in more accurate scenarios. CSIs in general are not as much reconstructing the event that took place, but rather have a “who done it routine.” Their focus is on finding perpetrator traces with the risk of missing important information at the start of the investigation. Furthermore, identification information was mostly integrated in their final scenarios when the results of the analysis matched their expectations. CSIs have the tendency to look for confirmation, but the technology has no influence on this tendency. CSIs should be made aware of the risks of this strategy as important offender information could be missed or innocent people could be wrongfully accused.

Highlights•Crime scene investigations are accompanied by cognitive challenges.•Introducing technologies at crime scenes requires research into the human factor.•Mobile technologies can impede the investigation without studying the impact.

Currently, a series of promising new tools are under development that will enable crime scene investigators (CSIs) to analyze traces in situ during the crime scene investigation or enable them to detect blood and provide information on the age of blood. An experiment is conducted with thirty CSIs investigating a violent robbery at a mock crime scene to study the influence of such technologies on the perception and interpretation of traces during the first phase of the investigation. Results show that in their search for traces, CSIs are not directed by the availability of technologies, which is a reassuring finding. Qualitative findings suggest that CSIs are generally more focused on analyzing perpetrator traces than on reconstructing the event. A focus on perpetrator traces might become a risk when other crime-related traces are overlooked, and when analyzed traces are in fact not crime-related and in consequence lead to the identification of innocent suspects.

Mobiele identificatietechnieken maken het in de nabije toekomst mogelijk DNA- en vingersporen tijdens een lopend forensisch sporenonderzoek snel te analyseren, te vergelijken met referentiemonsters, en de resultaten hiervan te gebruiken in het verdere onderzoek. In dit experimentele onderzoek werd de invloed onderzocht van deze snelle analyseresultaten op de scenariovorming, en van de databankidentificaties in deze resultaten op de interpretatie van sporen door forensisch rechercheurs in Nederland. Forensisch rechercheurs (N = 65) voerden een gesimuleerd plaats delict onderzoek uit. Hierbij werden zowel de analyseresultaten als het moment waarop deze werden verstrekt gemanipuleerd. De resultaten laten zien dat snelle analyseresultaten de scenariovorming van rechercheurs beïnvloeden, en dat deze invloed afhankelijk is van het moment van de informatieverstrekking. Oordelen van rechercheurs over het belang van de sporen blijken niet door databankidentificaties te worden beïnvloed.

Crime scenes can always be explained in multiple ways. Traces alone do not provide enough information to infer a whole series of events that has taken place; they only provide clues for these inferences. CSIs need additional information to be able to interpret observed traces. In the near future, a new source of information that could help to interpret a crime scene and testing hypotheses will become available with the advent of rapid identification techniques. A previous study with CSIs demonstrated that this information had an influence on the interpretation of the crime scene, yet it is still unknown what exact information was used for this interpretation and for the construction of their scenario. The present study builds on this study and gains more insight into (1) the exact investigative and forensic information that was used by CSIs to construct their scenario, (2) the inferences drawn from this information, and (3) the kind of evidence that was selected at the crime scene to (dis)prove this scenario. We asked 48 CSIs to investigate a potential murder crime scene on the computer and explicate what information they used to construct a scenario and to select traces for analysis. The results show that the introduction of rapid ID information at the start of an investigation contributes to the recognition of different clues at the crime scene, but also to different interpretations of identical information, depending on the kind of information available and the scenario one has in mind. Furthermore, not all relevant traces were recognized, showing that important information can be missed during the investigation. In this study, accurate crime scenarios where mainly build with forensic information, but we should be aware of the fact that crime scenes are always contaminated with unrelated traces and thus be cautious of the power of rapid ID at the crime scene.

New technologies will allow Crime Scene Investigators (CSIs) in the near future to analyse traces at the crime scene and receive identification information while still conducting the investigation. These developments could have considerable effects on the way an investigation is conducted. CSIs may start reasoning based on possible database-matches which could influence scenario formation (i.e. the construction of narratives that explain the observed traces) during very early phases of the investigation. The goal of this study is to gain more insight into the influence of the rapid identification information on the reconstruction of the crime and the evaluation of traces by addressing two questions, namely 1) is scenario formation influenced from the moment that ID information is provided and 2) do database matches influence the evaluation of traces and the reconstruction of the crime. We asked 48 CSIs from England to investigate a potential murder crime scene on a computer. Our findings show that the interpretation of the crime scene by CSIs is affected by the moment identification information is provided. This information has a higher influence on scenario formation when provided after an initial scenario has been formed. Also, CSIs seem to attach great value to traces that produce matches with databases and hence yield a name of a known person. Similar traces that did not provide matches were considered less important. We question whether this kind of selective attention is desirable as it may cause ignorance of other relevant information at the crime scene.

Processen-verbaal van politie spelen een belangrijke rol bij de waarheidsvinding. Er wordt veel vertrouwen gesteld in deze schriftelijke stukken. Het is de vraag of dit vertrouwen in p.v.'s gerechtvaardigd is nu blijkt hoe gemakkelijk er verschillen optreden tussen verbalisanten bij het opmaken van een p.v. van één verhoor.

The backbone of Dutch criminal procedure is the case file including a largenumber of written records. In Dutch courts the focus is primarily on evaluation ofwritten records. The written record of police interrogation is a mediated accountof the interrogation itself. In this study we explore how individual differences inthe production of written records by police officers affect the jurists’ evaluation ofthe suspect’s story and of the quality of the interrogation itself. In the first study,five police officers produced written records of one and the same interrogation onvideo of a denying suspect. In the second study, three of those written records areevaluated by jurists. They are asked to determine story acceptability of the suspect and procedural fairness of the interrogation. Findings show that a short and simple interrogation of a suspect results in written records that are quite different (Study I). It is further shown that these differences affect the jurists’ evaluation of some of the core issues addressed in a criminal process (Study II). Implications of these findings are discussed as well as a number of possible ways to improve the current state of affairs.