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Protecting Evidence From A Crime Scene Essay

¶ … physical evidence include: trace evidence, impression evidence, and biological evidence. Several examples of physical evidence include: Biological material such as blood, saliva or semen; fingerprints; hair; and fibers. Physical evidence is that evidence that consists of tangible materials such as paint, glass, ballistics, dust, dirt, and wounds (www.nfstc.org). Impression evidence is also physical evidence and it can be tire tracks, prints from shoes or boots, bite marks on a victim's body, and tool marks (for example, nicks and chips from a certain tool that was used to break into a building are part of impression evidence).

How is evidence collected, packaged, and preserved?

The Oregon State Police Forensic Services Division offers "General Evidence Guidelines" -- and the report asserts that all evidence has to be collected, handled, and stored in such a way as to "ensure" its integrity. The guidelines are presented in bullet points, and will be presented here: "Protect yourself and others"; "protect the evidence"; "consider all types of forensic evidence"; "chain of custody starts at the crime scene -- keep it short"; "document location with notes, sketches, and/or photographs"; "mark evidence and packaging with your case identifier, initials,...

What that means is, "the entire object" should be collected and packaged, unless it is too big to be practical (www.nfstc.org). The collection of blood should be done by removing "a section of the item" with the bloodstain using a "sterile or clean cutting device"; or the sample can be scraped with a razor blade onto a clean piece of paper; or "fingerprint lifting tape" can be placed on the dried blood stain and lifted off (www.nfstc.org).
Packaging evidence and storing evidence is absolutely vitally important in order to preserve evidence properly for presentation in a court of law. Biological evidence should be…

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Works Cited

National Forensics Science Technology Center. (2007). Preservation of Evidence. Retrieved June 19, 2014, from http://www.nfstc.org.

Oregon State Police Forensic Services Division. (2011). General Evidence Handling.

Retrieved June 19, 2014, from http://www.crime-scene-investigator.net.

Warrington, D. (2006). First Responding Officer Gives Direction to Crime Scene. Forensic Magazine. Retrieved June 19, 2014, from http://www.forensicmag.com.
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