The iPad is 3 years old. As of June 2013, the iPhone app store offers over 900,000 apps for the iPhone with 375,000 apps native to the iPad. There has to be an app that can assist investigators at crime scenes.
The iPad can be used to document a scene just like any camera or video camera. The ease is being able to incorporate the video and pictures into a report. The tablet can also store many forms that an investigator may need to fill out. Forms can be saved and printed when an investigator returns to the station. These functions are basic and do not require an application purchase or download. They are the same functions a laptop computer could perform. Here’s the difference. There are applications that can be downloaded to the iPad or iPhone that can complete tasks that an ordinary computer cannot.
The cost of the apps range from free to a few hundred dollars. I haven’t tried all of these apps out (yet) but I wanted to write about the importance of accepting new technology into a crime scene. I found the app MagicPlan CSI that can map out a room in a few minutes. It is perfect for a scene sketch. It is a quick and easy way to create a crime scene sketch. You can put evidence in the sketch and add pictures to the sketch. It is difficult to use in rooms that have a lot of curves and awkward layouts, but for a standard room is great. The best part is that it is a free download. PolicePartner only cost $1.99 and it allows a police officer to takes notes, put in witnesses and suspects. It organizes the information so it is easy to input and retrieve. I found many apps created by law enforcement agencies that assist their officers with Miranda warnings, administration license suspension forms and other agency specific items. They usually don’t provide a large number of other functions provided by private software companies.
There are more expensive and complete crime scene apps as well. Evidence Technology Magazine listed a few; MobileCSI Pro, CrimePad, and Pocket CSI were three of them. The pricing of these apps vary depending on how many users and some charge a flat rate. To find one that cost less than a hundred dollars would be a challenge. That may seem expensive, but great care has been taken to provide a complete software platform. The cost is minimal compared to hardware purchases such as a total station. Smaller departments with smaller budgets may find these apps to be a cost effective way to use new technology. These apps provide the user a portable and easy way to map an entire crime scene using an iPad. They allow the user to document the scene audibly and visually with videos, pictures and scene sketch software. Accurate measurements can be made at crime scenes without the use of a tape measure. Organization of paper work and a resource guide to evidence processing techniques are included in most of the high-end software. Newly promoted or assigned detectives are coming from a generation where technology is the norm and familiar. In a few short years, new crime scene investigators will not remember a time when technology wasn’t a part of daily life. Now is the time to incorporate the new technology into the investigators skill set.
The ability of the apps is endless, the problem is the storage needed to be able to use all of the tools provided. Using the apps for evidence tracking, videos, pictures and documents can take up a lot of space. The 3D picture the software creates uses a lot of data storage space. If you have a large or multiple crime scenes, you may not have enough storage space on your device. If the iPad or other tablet is the only source of your pictures, you may miss out on some picture detail. A detective or investigators’ camera should have at least 10 megapixels. That gives the investigator the ability to get extreme detail in the pictures they take. The iPad and iPhone aren’t quite at the quality of a professional camera. So you may be duplicating the photos you take. My suggestion would be to use the iPad to take pictures that support your crime scene sketch created by the app, but use a camera to document the scene in pictures. As I stated above, newer investigators will be more comfortable with new and changing technology. Great investigators who have been doing their job “the old fashioned” way, may be hesitant to accept new technology. It may be more difficult to train them to change the way they have documented scenes for years. The “old” way of doing things isn’t wrong. Drawing a sketch on paper is just as valid as a sketch created on an iPad. The benefit lies in the time it takes to create the sketch. Now the sketch can be created with one person, instead of two measuring out the scene together.
The best advice I could give is to get an app and practice using it. Don’t give up if you don’t like the first one. There are so many apps out there that there has to be one that can help you with your work. Before incorporating the app fulltime, you may want to duplicate your work for the first few scenes, just in case……
http://www.evidencemagazine.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1116
http://www.policemag.com/channel/technology/articles/2011/08/10-top-law-enforcement-apps.aspx
http://www.designwareinc.com/3d_prod.htm?gclid=CJjU-4e157cCFQqf4AodMw0AfA
http://www.policeone.com/police-products/communications/articles/2002211-Law-enforcement-inspired-iPhone-and-iPad-apps/
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