Welcome to Criminal Investigation, the class many of you have been waiting for.  I have turned this into a forensics class, so we will have lots of labs where you will be able to use your evidence bag and get a little dirty.  This class will describe what a real CSI team does, which may be quite disappointing if you were expecting something out of the television series CSI-Las Vegas.  Whether or not you have aspirations to be an evidence technician, it is my hope that you learn how to recognize evidence, how to collect it, and how to make it admissible in court. 

Let me warn you now that you must come to class prepared or you will not pass.  You will have a quiz that covers the assigned reading at the beginning of each class.  Do your reading or you will not pass the quizzes, which are worth 15% of your grade.  Do not miss classes, as we will have frequent labs which are worth up to 35% of your grade and cannot be made up regardless of the worthiness of your excuse. Click the buttons to the left to see the readings and an introduction to each week.

Here is a review of the classes and labs:

Week 1: Intro to criminal investigation

Week 2: Crime scene sketching

Week 3: Crime scene photography

Week 4: Packaging evidence

Week 5: Latent and inked fingerprints

Week 6: Plaster casts

Week 7: Wet evidence (mostly biological fluids)

Week 8: Microfibers

Week 9: Final project.

Week 10: Final exam and turn in final project report

Several parts of this class require that you write brief reports on the model of a police subsequent report.  Some students have trouble with these reports, so I have written simple example reports for you to study.  Notice, that as I explain in class, you need to include a description of the scene.  See here for the outdoor example, and here for the indoor example.

© Christopher Bruno