When reading the next two articles, it was clear to me how flawed the South African criminal justice system is regarding crime scene investigation and just how easy it is to ineffectively or falsely document crime scenes. We all know South Africa has many corrupt officials in all spheres of its government departments but looking at real-life examples of how negligence and unethical behaviour has occurred in solving crimes is shocking and disheartening.

Managing crime scenes and evidence is a meticulous and time-consuming process and I understand that it can be exceptionally frustrating and disillusioning when feeling stumped by a seemingly unsolvable offence. Furthermore, looking at South Africa’s situation, the lack of resources and motivation, as well as the very high crime rates are detrimental to those who are trying to fight it. The issues here run very deep and have to do with various factors, from unethical policing to negligence to corruption from external individuals. 

This lack of skills and resources is having major implications on the success of forensic science in solving crime, the credibility of experts is often questioned and therefore evidence is often questionable. The reading on South African forensics has shown that evidence is often thrown out and cases acquitted because of the lack of trust of experts, which is understandable in some cases. The suspect acquitted in Visser and Oosthuizen’s writing might have been guilty but because of the short-comings of the forensic science used to produce evidence, the evidence to point to him was missed. As Locard has mentioned that there is always evidence deposited to or taken from the scene, the fabricated evidence might have barricaded the real evidence. 
I personally have witnessed situations in which the police do not even bother in observing the crime scene, they would just take statements and leave. Perhaps this is due to lack of training and skills, or mere ignorance on their part. One of the writers mentioned that there should be adequate theoretical and practical training for investigators in South Africa, a point I concur with.

I especially enjoyed learning about Locard’s exchange principle and the continuity of possession principle. 
Locard’s exchange principle also highlights that the crime scene technicians or first responding police officers will too inevitably leave some trace. 

 

The reading also stressed the importance of the continuity of possession which allows us to account for where the physical evidence was found and the continued safeguarding of the evidence (chain of custody). It was then interesting to read in the IOL news report about the ‘RailCar’ they have designed and used to provide a chain of custody and prevent the evidence from being tampered with or contaminated. 

 

Another point that sparked my interest was that in the 2016 NEWS24 report, they mentioned how many forensic labs (aside from CT) are not accredited. Similarly, the reading by Bernitz et al (2015) (chapter 23) highlighted how there is a lack of accredited forensic institutions in SA. Currently, the FSL is not accredited with the SANAS. The only two accredited labs in SA are both in the fields of chemistry (toxicology specifically), this makes me wonder why it took 5/6 years to get a toxicology report back as highlighted in the NEWS24 article? Is it due to sheer volume overload? Lack of tertiary qualifications and training platforms? Lack of capacity for analysing enzymes, hair and nails? (Reasons highlighted in the reading) This doesn’t seem to be good enough reasons for a 5-year wait…

 

Lastly, I want to reflect on the photogallery images. The images took you through the process: from the office, to the ambulance call, to the scene of incident, to the autopsy rooms. I noticed in the images that there was crime scene tape to prevent bystanders and others from contaminating the scene. There was no officer stationed outside the parameters to enforce a barrier either.