Agape Blog

Recently the Police Department in Detroit shut down its crime laboratory after an audit uncovered serious errors in numerous cases. The audit reported that sloppy work had probably resulted in wrongful convictions.

The closure of the Forensic laboratory in Detroit means that all the pending and future cases will be sent to the Michigan State Police, which operates seven laboratories. While the officials from the Detroit Police Department, will try to determine whether the errors resulted in guilty verdicts against innocent people.

Such a casual approach from any forensics firm can never be tolerated as it can lead to the conviction of innocent people, thereby defeating the sole purpose of why forensic investigation is used in the trials of a crime. But as in this case, at least the city of Detroit has acknowledged their mistakes and doing what it can to correct them. While there have been cases like: Mississippi does blunder, wherein the investigation went horribly wrong and yet it was allowed to propagate further.   

The links for this week cover a wide range of topics from data recovery to ethical hacking and network security tools. The articles include some How to do it yourself tutorials, as well.

1. The Windows way of successful data recovery. Read more

2. IBM’s research paper on Ethical Hacking. Read more

3. Importance of newtwork security forensic appliances in evidence gathering. Read more

The Maharashtra state government has sanctioned Rs. 3.5 crores to set up a forensic laboratory in Amravati. This will be the first ever forensic laboratory in the Amravati division.

With the increasing crime rate, forensics help in solving complex cases easily. Also due to the absence of forensic laboratories in Amravati, Akola, Yavatmal and other nearby cities, people and law enforcement agencies have to depend on the laboratories in Nagpur. This burdens the work on the forensic labs in Nagpur and hence police enquiry in many cases cannot be completed as they wait for the results. The workforce in forensics field is also difficult to find as it requires through knowledge of all the concepts. At such times, private organisations like Agape Inc also help in forensic investigations. It is estimated that around 39,000 cases for the year 2005 and 2006 are still waiting for the results from the forensic lab. For 2007 and 2008, this number crosses 35,000 mark.

Considering all these points the state government has decided to start a laboratory at Amravati. The funds sanctioned will be used to purchase equipment and furniture needed for the laboratory. In the first phase of its operations, the lab will recruit around 56 persons. Considering the geographical location of the city, investigation of general and wildlife crime cases would see an increase and reduce the burden on other forensic labs in the state.