Presentation
Frontline Forensics – An evidence based practice model to improve prevention, disruption and crime solvability
Mr Duncan McCarthy1, Ms Lisa Weller1, Mr Joshua White1
1Queensland Police Service, Brisbane, Australia
Property related crime, particularly the break and enter of dwellings has had an enormous impact on community confidence in policing and is a significant impact on front line policing services. The Frontline Forensics Project was commenced to demonstrate a more efficient method of collecting forensic evidence, making significant frontline savings and improving community confidence.
Research findings from Antrobus and Pilotto (2016), where an experimental Scenes of Crime (SOC) attendance improved crime solvability and a Queensland Audit Office review in 2018 reporting 70% of solved volume crime in Queensland was linked to a forensic identification, provided the evidence base for the Frontline Forensics Project. For three months in 2022, additional SOC officers were deployed into a controlled QPS District, where they spent additional time on forensic examinations, community / victim engagement and enable rapid fingerprint identification results improve frontline police crime responses.
From the experimental results, when SOC Officers spent more time at crime scenes, fingerprint identifications increased by over 11%. SOC officers saved frontline police over 570 scene attendances in three months, increased community engagement time, reduced the initial attendance time and returned a positive client survey response rate over 96%. The statewide projected frontline savings is the equivalent of over 187000 frontline officer hours annually. The QPS has approved significant resourcing to invest in the Frontline Forensics model as the future of statewide SOC deployment.
Antrobus E, Pilotto A. Improving forensic responses to residential burglaries: results of a randomized controlled field trial. J Exp Criminology (2016) 12:319-345