Signs of how the Sydney Declaration article is received in the forensic science literature.

The Sydney Declaration is an initiative led by an informal group of forensic scientists with diverse backgrounds. It offers a vision of forensic science based on the trace, as a vestige of a past event related to security or a possible law violation. An article published in Forensic Science International (FSI) introduces to this view [1].

Forensic intelligence teaching and learning in higher education: An international approach.

Over the years, forensic science has primarily positioned itself as a service provider for the criminal justice system, following the dominant and traditional reactive law enforcement model. Unfortunately, this focus has limited its capacity to provide knowledge about crime systems and to support other forms of policing styles through forensic intelligence. Although forensic intelligence research has steadily developed over the last few years, it is rarely covered in the core of academic teaching and research programs.

The Sydney declaration - Revisiting the essence of forensic science through its fundamental principles.

Unlike other more established disciplines, a shared understanding and broad acceptance of the essence of forensic science, its purpose, and fundamental principles are still missing or mis-represented. This foundation has been overlooked, although recognised by many forensic science forefathers and seen as critical to this discipline's advancement. The Sydney Declaration attempts to revisit the essence of forensic science through its foundational basis, beyond organisations, technicalities or protocols.

"Hello are you available?" Dealing with online frauds and the role of forensic science.

On August 6, 2019, the 119 members of the School of criminal justice, forensic science and criminology at the University of Lausanne were the target of an online scammer. His/her modus operandi consisted of email masquerading as the Director of the School in an attempt to induce the victims to buy digital gift cards and to transmit the card usage code to the perpetrator. The first author of this paper is the Director of the School, and the second is an expert in digital forensic science and a professor of the School.

Breaking the barriers between intelligence, investigation and evaluation: A continuous approach to define the contribution and scope of forensic science.

Forensic science has been evolving towards a separation of more and more specialised tasks, with forensic practitioners increasingly identifying themselves with only one sub-discipline or task of forensic science. Such divisions are viewed as a threat to the advancement of science because they tend to polarise researchers and tear apart scientific communities. The objective of this article is to highlight that a piece of information is not either intelligence or evidence, and that a forensic scientist is not either an investigator or an evaluator, but that these notions must all be applied in conjunction to successfully understand a criminal problem or solve a case.

Deliberate fires: From data to intelligence.

Deliberate fires are a very common problem affecting all countries around the world. They create a high sense of insecurity within communities, consuming and straining many resources (human and financial). Yet, despite various attempts, significantly tackling and reducing deliberate fires has remained largely ineffective, mainly due to the case-by-case approach implemented in responding to these incidents.

The Kodak Syndrome: Risks and Opportunities Created by Decentralization of Forensic Capabilities.

Forensic science laboratories are being challenged by the expanding decentralization of forensic capabilities, particularly for digital traces. This study recommends laboratories undertake digital transformations to capitalize on the decentralization movement, develop a more comprehensive understanding of crime and security-relevant problems, and play a more central role in problem-solving collaboratively with law enforcement organizations and other stakeholders. A framework for the bilateral transfer of information and knowledge is proposed to magnify the impact of forensic science laboratories on abating crime, strengthening security, and reinforcing the criminal justice system.

Repetitive deliberate fires: Development and validation of a methodology to detect series.

The detection of repetitive deliberate fire events is challenging and still often ineffective due to a case-by-case approach. A previous study provided a critical review of the situation and analysis of the main challenges. This study suggested that the intelligence process, integrating forensic data, could be a valid framework to provide a follow-up and systematic analysis provided it is adapted to the specificities of repetitive deliberate fires.

Image processing of false identity documents for forensic intelligence.

Forensic intelligence has recently gathered increasing attention as a potential expansion of forensic science that may contribute in a wider policing and security context. Whilst the new avenue is certainly promising, relatively few attempts to incorporate models, methods and techniques into practical projects are reported. This work reports a practical application of a generalised and transversal framework for developing forensic intelligence processes referred to here as the Transversal model adapted from previous work.

To analyse a trace or not? Evaluating the decision-making process in the criminal investigation.

In order to broaden our knowledge and understanding of the decision steps in the criminal investigation process, we started by evaluating the decision to analyse a trace and the factors involved in this decision step. This decision step is embedded in the complete criminal investigation process, involving multiple decision and triaging steps. Considering robbery cases occurring in a geographic region during a 2-year-period, we have studied the factors influencing the decision to submit biological traces, directly sampled on the scene of the robbery or on collected objects, for analysis.

Utility of the clue - From assessing the investigative contribution of forensic science to supporting the decision to use traces.

In an attempt to grasp the effectiveness of forensic science in the criminal justice process, a number of studies introduced some form of performance indicator. However, most of these indicators suffer from different weaknesses, from the definition of forensic science itself to problems of reliability and validity. We suggest the introduction of the concept of utility of the clue as an internal evaluation indicator of forensic science in the investigation.

The polymorphism of crime scene investigation: An exploratory analysis of the influence of crime and forensic intelligence on decisions made by crime scene examiners.

A growing body of scientific literature recurrently indicates that crime and forensic intelligence influence how crime scene investigators make decisions in their practices. This study scrutinises further this intelligence-led crime scene examination view. It analyses results obtained from two questionnaires.

The end of the (forensic science) world as we know it? The example of trace evidence.

The dominant conception of forensic science as a patchwork of disciplines primarily assisting the criminal justice system (i.e. forensics) is in crisis or at least shows a series of anomalies and serious limitations.

Forensic intelligence framework. Part II: Study of the main generic building blocks and challenges through the examples of illicit drugs and false identity documents monitoring.

The development of forensic intelligence relies on the expression of suitable models that better represent the contribution of forensic intelligence in relation to the criminal justice system, policing and security. Such models assist in comparing and evaluating methods and new technologies, provide transparency and foster the development of new applications. Interestingly, strong similarities between two separate projects focusing on specific forensic science areas were recently observed.

Expanding forensic science through forensic intelligence.

Research and Development ('R&D') in forensic science currently focuses on innovative technologies improving the efficiency of existing forensic processes, from the detection of marks and traces at the scene, to their presentation in Court. R&D approached from this perspective provides no response to doubts raised by recent criminological studies, which question the effective contribution of forensic science to crime reduction, and to policing in general. Traces (i.

The use of methylamphetamine chemical profiling in an intelligence-led perspective and the observation of inhomogeneity within seizures.

This study focuses on methylamphetamine (MA) seizures made by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) to investigate the use of chemical profiling in an intelligence perspective. Correlation coefficients were used to obtain a similarity degree between a population of linked samples and a population of unlinked samples. Although it was demonstrated that a general framework can be followed for the use of any forensic case data in an intelligence-led perspective, threshold values have to be re-evaluated for each type of illicit drug investigated.

A collaborative approach for incorporating forensic case data into crime investigation using criminal intelligence analysis and visualisation.

There is an increasing awareness that the articulation of forensic science and criminal investigation is critical to the resolution of crimes. However, models and methods to support an effective collaboration between the partners are still poorly expressed or even lacking. Three propositions are borrowed from crime intelligence methods in order to bridge this gap: (a) the general intelligence process, (b) the analyses of investigative problems along principal perspectives: entities and their relationships, time and space, quantitative aspects and (c) visualisation methods as a mode of expression of a problem in these dimensions.

Forensic intelligence framework--Part I: Induction of a transversal model by comparing illicit drugs and false identity documents monitoring.

Forensic intelligence is a distinct dimension of forensic science. Forensic intelligence processes have mostly been developed to address either a specific type of trace or a specific problem. Even though these empirical developments have led to successes, they are trace-specific in nature and contribute to the generation of silos which hamper the establishment of a more general and transversal model.

The use of organic and inorganic impurities found in MDMA police seizures in a drug intelligence perspective.

Traditional forensic drug profiling involves numerous analytical techniques, and the whole process is typically costly and may be time consuming. The aim of this study was to investigate the possibility of prioritising techniques utilised at the Australian Federal Police (AFP) for the chemical profiling of 3,4-methylenedioxymethylamphetamine (MDMA). The outcome would provide the AFP with the ability to obtain more timely and valuable results that could be used in an intelligence perspective.

The systematic profiling of false identity documents: method validation and performance evaluation using seizures known to originate from common and different sources.

False identity documents constitute a potential powerful source of forensic intelligence because they are essential elements of transnational crime and provide cover for organized crime. In previous work, a systematic profiling method using false documents' visual features has been built within a forensic intelligence model. In the current study, the comparison process and metrics lying at the heart of this profiling method are described and evaluated.

The use of forensic case data in intelligence-led policing: the example of drug profiling.

To date, forensic science has predominantly focused on generating evidence for judicial proceedings. While many recognise its broader and important contribution to the initial stages of the forensic process, resources do not seem to be employed efficiently. It is often discovered retrospectively that necessary information was previously available in a database or within existing files.

Integrating forensic information in a crime intelligence database.

Since 2008, intelligence units of six states of the western part of Switzerland have been sharing a common database for the analysis of high volume crimes. On a daily basis, events reported to the police are analysed, filtered and classified to detect crime repetitions and interpret the crime environment. Several forensic outcomes are integrated in the system such as matches of traces with persons, and links between scenes detected by the comparison of forensic case data.

Situating forensic traces in time.

Situating events and traces in time is an essential problem in investigations. To date, among the typical questions issued in forensic science, time has generally been unexplored. The reason for this can be traced to the complexity of the overall problem, addressed by several scientists in very limited projects usually stimulated by a specific case.

Use of DNA profiles for investigation using a simulated national DNA database: Part II. Statistical and ethical considerations on familial searching.

Familial searching consists of searching for a full profile left at a crime scene in a National DNA Database (NDNAD). In this paper we are interested in the circumstance where no full match is returned, but a partial match is found between a database member's profile and the crime stain. Because close relatives share more of their DNA than unrelated persons, this partial match may indicate that the crime stain was left by a close relative of the person with whom the partial match was found.