SCIENCE AND CRIME.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 57, Issue 253, 6 August 1937, Page 8

SCIENCE AND CRIME.

LABORATORIES FOR POLICE The latest schemes for training police officers in the scientific detection of crime are described in a Home Office document which has been issued to polioe authorities (says the “Daily Telegraph”). It was written by the late Mr C. T. Symons, who was from February, 1935,' until his recent death adviser to the Home Secretary on the applicartion of scientific aids to police woik. Regional laboratories are being established in different parts of the country where material collected by officers at the scene of a' crime is examined by. experts. The report suggests that the means for expert examination should be ready before the training of the officers is complete so that their work should not be wasted. In addition to laboratories, “first aid scientific posts” have been started during the past two years. Here officers make a careful visual examinatijn and take photographs of mm;-rial which, if suitable, is sent to a laboratory. For this the Home Office ad vises the use of a binocular magnifier, photographic apparatus. In the case of a theft of cabbages accurate photographs of the cut portions in apposition demonstrated clearly that the cabbages seized liad come from the .roots left in 'he field Training by means of lectus es and talks on scientific points have been given by scientists attached to police laboratories, and instances arc given of the value of this training. The finding of a small fragment of car enamel on the extreme oil-side of the road, and its careful photographic comparison with a portion of the radiator from which the enamel w;.-s mossing, demonstrated that the one fitted exactly into the other. This was useful evidence in obtaining a conviction in the absence of any eye-witness. The Home Office is considering eke publication of a Journal of Forensic Science devoted to the more purely scientific side of police work.