crime scene

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Securing evidence at a crime scene by the United States Army Criminal Investigation Command
Securing evidence at a crime scene with a battlefield and dragging marks, College for Criminalists, Berlin 1932.

Crime scene is in the criminology the place at which the offender an offense immediately committed has.

General

It is the place where the offender acted in the offense of committing or should have acted in the offense of omission and the success of the offense occurred or should have occurred according to the perpetrator. In the case of a crime, there may well be several crime scenes if the course of events made this necessary. In the offense stage , the crime scene is an important source of evidence because this is where most of the evidence can be found. The crime scene in a broader sense includes before all localities, during or after the fact, such as the preparation site, the trail of the perpetrator to the object of the crime , the wider area of the crime scene, the site where the Tatopfers , the escape of the offender, escape vehicles, hiding the loot or the place of the crime .

The term is used not only in connection with police investigative work, but also in criminology and crime statistics.

Demarcation

The concept of the crime scene must be differentiated from that of the location , such as a corpse or an item of evidence. The location and the crime scene are not always identical. From a criminalist point of view, the place of discovery is the place of the event at which objects , things or people are found that are or can be associated with a criminal offense. In the case of a corpse, for example, it is necessary to check whether it was only found at the site and whether the crime scene is different. The discrepancy between the place of discovery and the scene of the crime suggests that the perpetrator still needed means of transport with which he took the body to the place of discovery on roads or paths. The place of discovery, in turn, does not necessarily have to be identical to the place of deposit, for example if a corpse is thrown into flowing water and washed up elsewhere. A neutral term that should be used if it has not (yet) been clarified whether it is the location of the crime, filing or discovery is the location of the incident. Event or simply place of use is also called the place where an event not subject to sanctions, such as a natural disaster, takes place or has taken place.

Legal issues

The legal definition of the crime scene can be found in Section 9 (1) StGB . According to this, an act is committed at every place where the perpetrator acted or, in the event of failure to act, should have acted, or where the offense related to the offense occurred or should occur according to the perpetrator. The same wording can also be found in the law on administrative offenses ( Section 7 (1) OWiG ). In § 7 para. 1 StPO is talk of a place where "committed the crime". In § 7 , para. 2 SCC is clarifying that the German criminal law applies to offenses committed abroad against a German if the act is threatened on foreign crime scene with sentence or crime scene is not subject to criminal violence.

A distinction must be made between the legal crime scene as defined in Section 7 (1) StGB, the scene of the incident and the criminal crime scene. In criminal law, both the crime scene and the place where the participant acts are decisive for participation. Event location is a room ( living room or business premises ) or place where a criminalistically relevant event took place. The scene of the crime is important both for the applicability of criminal law and for the local jurisdiction of the police and public prosecutor's office ( § 143 GVG ) and thus - indirectly according to the statutory regulation - also for the courts in criminal matters . The crime scene is part of the first attack . Section 200, Paragraph 1, Sentence 1 of the Code of Criminal Procedure names the time and place of the crime as defining features of the indictment , but these features are not alone. Other circumstances, in particular details of the commission of the offense, also serve to specify the offense. The time of the offense and the place of the offense can be supplemented or replaced as defining features.

Exceptions are, for example, terrorism and espionage . As part of the preliminary investigation, the locally competent police are responsible for prosecuting the offense and the perpetrator in accordance with Section 163 StPO (possibly in conjunction with Section 46 OWiG).

The place of inspection according to the principle of ubiquity is not only the place where the act was committed or omitted, but also the place where a factual success has occurred or should occur according to the imagination of those involved.

Crime scene work

Crime scene work by the police at a crime scene of the Loerrach shooting
Confiscated items that are too bulky to be locked away are marked accordingly

The crime scene work is a task of the police, who set up and carry out a police operation. When the scene of the crime is first accessed, the security police often have the security attack , whereas the criminal police have the evaluation attack . In practically every case, the local police station of the protection police is on site. She hands over the crime scene to the criminal police together with evidence and reports and some people.

The so-called first attack takes place at the crime scene . In terms of police tactics , a crime scene is secured immediately after the emergency services arrive by internal and external barriers as well as securing or confiscation . In addition, the crime scene is searched for evidence and a trampling path (track alley) is set up in order not to falsify existing tracks or to set one's own. At the entrance there is a control of the people who want to enter or leave the crime scene. In addition, with instant documents a crime scene area investigation initiated. Furthermore, it is important to describe the situation of the crime scene (so-called. Crime scene findings ) and any perpetrators from among the onlookers to determine because some offenders observe the further course according to their deeds.

In criminal proceedings, the scene of the crime is primarily the starting point for investigations by the law enforcement authorities because of the evidence there . This is where evidence of the fact that an act took place and of the perpetrator can be found. In the ideal case, these traces enable a suspect or accused person to be transferred directly or, under certain circumstances, lead to further investigative approaches that at least enable a person to be searched. Recently, in the case of sexual and violent crimes, the usefulness of crime scene data has also been discussed in relation to forensic psychiatry , as it provides treatment-relevant information about the psychological background of the crime.

Certain crimes are only dealt with by the criminal police. This also includes on-site criminal investigations. If the first attack is carried out by the police, the crime scene will be handed over to the criminal police on site. This exchange of information takes place with the help of a written, mostly multi-page initial access report and / or verbally on site. If necessary, traces and personal details of the accused, witnesses and informants may also be handed over. Then the evaluation attack is carried out, which primarily involves securing evidence . As a rule, a crime scene report is created. The instructions for crime scene work traces (ATOS), published by the Federal Criminal Police Office , are binding throughout Germany.

Crime statistics

The crime statistics , for example, examine the crime scene-residence relationship of the suspect. According to this, a total of 63.4% of all suspects lived in the crime scene community in 2017, the rate for murder was 58.9%.

International

Criminology makes use of the findings of logic , biology , chemistry , physics or technology , so that internationally the same conditions also apply to the crime scene.

See also

literature

  • Holger Roll: crime scene work. Teaching and study letters for criminalistics / criminology. 1st edition. Volume 8, Verlag Deutsche Polizeiliteratur, Hilden 2008, ISBN 978-3-8011-0577-8 .
  • Rolf Ackermann: Crime scene work and criminalistic knowledge. In: Criminology . 2006, pp. 783-788.
  • University of Applied Sciences of the Police of the State of Brandenburg, training course for middle police enforcement service - forensics / forensic technology, forensics / forensics, script 6: Forensic crime scene work / first attack, concept and meaning of the crime scene, basics for police crime scene work, crime scene work and criminal thinking, structure and methodology. December 2010 (PDF; 176 KB)

Web links

Wiktionary: Tatort  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations
Commons : Crime scenes  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Carl Creifelds , Creifelds Legal Dictionary , 2000, p. 1299 f.
  2. Horst Clages (Ed.), The Red Thread: Principles of Criminal Practice , 2004, p. 69
  3. Horst Clages (Ed.), The Red Thread: Principles of Criminal Practice , 2004, p. 80
  4. Horst Clages (Ed.), The Red Thread: Principles of Criminal Practice , 2004, p. 79
  5. BGH, decision of April 4, 2017, Az .: BGH 2 StR 409/16
  6. BGH, judgment of March 5, 1998, Az .: 5 StR 494/97 = BGHSt 44, 52
  7. ^ BGH, decision of December 15, 2009, Az .: StB 52/09 = BGH NJW 2010, 2448
  8. Ulf Steinert, Criminalist crime scene script / first attack , University of Applied Sciences of the Police of the State of Brandenburg, December 2010, p. 6. (online as PDF)
  9. Cornelia Musloff / Jens Hoffmann (eds.), Profiles of perpetrators in violent crimes , 2nd edition, Springer, Heidelberg 2006, ISBN 3-540-33345-2 , chap. 16, 17 & 18.