How much forensics take place at an ‘average’ murder?
Ive lived in a few major cities that have murders daily. Ive also seen a tremendous amount of police shows that pour over every detail, doing ballistics tests and matching gun types and looking for registered weapons.
In reality, how much time is spent on murders and how thorough are investigations? Im sure it varies from case to case and if it’s high profile or a white girl, it gets much more attention. Generally, what is the process?
I don’t know how much real time is spent on each murder but I do know that most morgues in large cities have bodies stacked up like cord-wood. They absolutely do not have the time to pour over every case as the TV shows imply. Also, it takes much longer to run these tests than the programs show. You can’t get a DNA test back in a couple of hours like you assume by watching these programs for example.
Take these programs with a grain of salt. I think they are good because they show people solving crimes. Also they have made a thoroughly unglamorous job glamorous. However, all TV shows and movies take a lot of liberty with reality in order to make them more interesting and exciting. So always question what you see on these programs and check them out for reality.
First and foremost, leave the racist comments out next time.
Second, Murder is an extremely serious crime for every department and is treated as such. Regardless of who the victim is or who the offender is. The amount of forensics testing done depends entirely on the amount of evidence found at the scene. The amount of time spent on the case also depends entirely on the type of case. A murder which began as an assault and where the victim succumbs later to their wounds is entirely different in almost every aspect than a murder where an unidentified body is found under a bridge. I would venture that most murders are of the former kind.
So, in summation. Sorry I can’t give you a real answer, but like most police work it’s unpredictable and varied.
**Oh yes, and forensic analysis doesn’t happen in 30 minutes like on TV. There are also never cool 3D computer models that pop up with a mouse click like on CSI. Getting the blood results back for a DUI can take over a month. So you could imagine the amount of time it would take to get 20 different tests back from various labs.