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I work with an agency that currently intergrades their C.S.I. unit with road patrol. Do any other agenc'y do this? By example: The road officer is well trained and equipted, however, he/she is also responsible for their patrol areas. It works great here... the agency has about 120 sworn. I would like some feed back on larger/smaller agencys and there units.
THANKS~
Personally I think processing, done correctly, can take quite awhile. Especially when you factor in time needed to obtain elimination prints from the victim. I think having a separate forensics section frees the deputies/officers to do their work. A person to strictly do processing, collection can spend more time processing the scene without worring about being called away in the middle of processing to back up another LEO, or respond to a high priority call. Not that I doubt the skills of LEO doing processing, I just think a more thorough job can be done with a unit specifically designated to processing.
For a small department that is a good deployment. For a larger agency it would require taking an officer off the street for a long amount of time. My agency employees over 1,000 police officers. My unit has 18 technicians with 3 supervisors, we handle over 500 calls for service a month. Some calls are longer than others, then comes the evidence processing which could take days. A general rule is for one hour on a case/call there is at least two hours in the office with reports or evidence packaging. I hope this helps...Quote:
Originally Posted by Guest
Our agency has patrol handle routine burglaries. CSTs respond to burglaries that are beyond the expertise of a deputy, robberies, death investigations, etc. Lakeland Police Department has patrol officers that are trained to work crime scenes except homicides. I think the smaller the agency, the more patrol does.
Well, we equip and train our officers very well and the agency is very supportive of the program. It is clearly understood that once the Officer arrives on scene he switches hats, so to speak, and is not to respond to calls until he has cleared the scene, finsihed packaging, processing, and reporting the scene. It is very effective here, however I can see a problem arising in a larger agency with case loads and ect. The other issue is interest. It seems very few Officers are interested in working a scene, my view is they want to see the scene and get there hands dirty, but when it comes to actually working very few want to touch it with a ten foot pole.