Chain Of Custody Model

Great Essays
Chain of custody is defined by Saferstein (2015), as a list of all the people who have handled or examined the piece of evidence. The chain of custody refers to the chronological documentation, that shows the names of the people who have examined or handled the evidence (Saferstein, 2015). According to Saferstein (2015), obeying the standard procedures of evidence treatment and examination, it can promise that the evidence can endure any questioning by the defence in a courtroom. Houck & Siegel (2015) stated that chain of custody is without a doubt, the most important piece of paper generated at a crime scene; they postulated, that without it, the most convincing piece of forensic evidence can be rendered useless in the judicial system. The …show more content…
Therefore, maintaining a chain of custody paradigm is of vital importance; because it keeps and puts violent criminals behind bars, also allowing the innocent people to re-examine the case in an accurate way. This essay will show; chain of custody model is vital, while efficiently making sure that the evidence was handled in a way which allows for an accurate re-evaluation of the evidence while preventing contamination. This essay will show the three vital aspects of the chain of custody model, in the judicial and law enforcement system:
• The benefits of the chain of custody model;
• Why the chain of custody model is needed in criminal investigations; and
• The outcomes of the chain of custody model in the judicial system.

The benefits of the chain of custody procedure model are that it provides criminal investigators’ (police
…show more content…
The chain of custody model can be a valuable way of simplifying the convergence of multiple forensic disciplines, reducing the possibility of mixing up or contaminating the evidence (Spikmans, 2015). In regard to the judicial outcomes, the results from the use of the chain of custody model in the courtroom, provide most of the necessary information for the jurors, prosecutors, defence, to either closely examine the validity of the handling and testing, or to demonstrate that the evidence is authentic and relevant to the case at hand. This essay has shown that during criminal investigations and in judicial outcomes, the chain of custody model is relevant and efficient in making sure that evidence was handled correctly, and allowed for correct re-appraisals from non-contaminate evidence. The evidence in this essay of the effectiveness of the chain of custody model means that it can be utilised in non-criminal cases as well, especially during maintenance of cars or other expensive machinery. This is because if something goes wrong there would be information about the person who performed the maintenance on the chain of custody form, saving time and money questioning multiple people; which suggests that the chain of custody paradigm has a

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