- Email: [email protected]
Forensics as a proactive science
SCIJUS-00451; No of Pages 2 Science and Justice xxx (2014) xxx–xxx
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Science and Justice journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/scijus
Editorial
Forensics as a proactive science☆
Forensic science for the most part is reactive and responsive to crimes which have already been committed. A proactive forensic science is a conceptual change, a fundamental shift in viewing the scope and endeavor of forensic science. Proactive forensic science does not wait for a crime to be committed for it to be called into action. In his famous book “Nine Tomorrows”, Isaac Asimov, in the mid 1950's, described Multivac, the future supercomputer, which by analyzing large amounts of data could predict future crimes and inform law enforcement who prevent the crimes from ever happening in the first place [1]. We are not there yet, but proactive forensic science can certainly shorten the gap. To the best of our knowledge, in forensic research, this approach has been suggested so far only to deal with computercrimes [2–4]. The expression of proactive forensics in other areas has been very sporadic. A successful example of proactive forensic science is connected to the hope post the Oslo Accords of 1993, when the newly erected Palestinian Authority was authorized to acquire weapons for use by law enforcement agencies. The Israel Police Division of Identification and Forensic Science (DIFS), as a precautionary proactive measure, test fired the 12,000 weapons prior to their transfer to the Authority. This was contemplated to enable future firearm comparison in the event that a weapon will be misused. As events developed, the decision was fortuitous. No more than one month after the first shipment of weapons to the Palestinian Authority, an Israeli civilian was murdered in Jerusalem. Laboratory examination showed, beyond a doubt, that the murder weapon, an AK-47, was one of the weapons given over to the Authority. In other words, the proactive forensic measure enabled firearms examination to prove that weapons that were meant for law enforcement were used for murder. The importance of this case is not in terms of criminal prosecution. It is an example of using forensics as a proactive science and not only a post facto means. Forensic science, or more precisely criminalistics, as will be explained soon, is traditionally that scientific discipline which determines how a crime was committed and submits those findings to courts of law. The focus is the courtroom, and forensic scientists present testimony to clarify what happened, leaving judges and juries to rule on culpability. However, like preventive medicine, forensic science can be a powerful tool not only in traditional post-incident prosecution, but also in deterrence and reduction of crime, as it adapts to situations in which there is no court. At this point, I wish to clarify two terms that are often being used as one. We have adopted lately the following definitions for criminalistics ☆ The author is indebted to Dr. Itiel Dror, senior cognitive neuroscience researcher at the Centre for Forensic Sciences, University College London (UCL), for his critical review and helpful remarks.
and forensic science: Criminalist is a person who uses scientific and technological methods to analyze and resolve crimes, and provide courts of law with objective evidence. Forensic scientist can be a criminalist too, but he/she is involved also in research and development, in order to assist the criminalists. Proactive forensic scientists not only improve existing techniques or develop new ones, but they also try to foresee trends in future crime and develop preventive measures ahead of time. In other words, they are trying to be one step ahead of the criminals, so that when the trend changes they will be ready. Their goal is to predict and characterize new trends of crime and provide countermeasures before it becomes a real threat. Tagging of inks in the US in the 1970's, for accurate identification and dating, is one example [5–7]. Tagging of explosives for both, detection and post-blast identification, is another example [8,9]. Research conducted by the Australian NFP in the 1990's, on the development of fingerprints from new Australian currency which was made of a polymeric material, can also be regarded as proactive forensics [10,11]. Despite their potential contribution to combating crime, such examples are rare and quite often the message is not followed up. In 1977, scientists at the Soreq Nuclear Center in Israel developed a compact system that could detect concealed bombs via X-ray absorption of heavy metals such as lead and mercury, which constitute the main part of a bomb detonator. DIFS advised the Counter-Terrorism Bureau that within a short while we should expect to come across a new type of detonators which contain no heavy metals. This prediction did not raise any particular interest at the decision-making level, and there was no demand to neither suggest potential candidate materials or to develop efficient analytical tools for them. Two years later the first “fully organic” detonator was intercepted. It was based on the improvised explosive HMTD, which was encountered for the first time in terrorist activity. Its full analysis took a while. A year later, another improvised high explosive, TATP (also organic peroxide containing no metallic components), was identified for the first time in terrorist activity, and quickly became the most widespread explosive used by terrorists in the Israeli arena and in several other countries. These two explosives are extremely sensitive, and terrorists have experienced a high number of fatal labor accidents during their preparation and transportation. The DIFS has predicted that sooner or later the terrorists will switch to less sensitive improvised explosives, and indeed, in the early 2000's they started to move from TATP to the powerful, yet much less sensitive, urea nitrate. While “normal”, reactive forensic science, has become an inevitable part of law enforcement activity, from the author's experience, it is not easy to convince policy makers of the importance of proactive forensics. Several years ago DIFS scientists proposed to launch a study on the possibility of distinguishing between DNA of
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scijus.2014.05.008 1355-0306/© 2014 Forensic Science Society. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.
Please cite this article as: J. Almog, Forensics as a proactive science, Sci. Justice (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scijus.2014.05.008
2
Editorial
monozygotic twins. The request was turned down on “irrelevance” ground: “Years may pass until we encounter such need” was the answer. Ironically, four relevant cases have been encountered already. A solution to the problem was suggested lately by Eurofins' scientists in Germany [12]. The applied nature of forensic science and its conception as helping the legal justice system solving crimes that have already happened, makes it hard to develop its proactive role. To adopt the proactive forensics concept successfully may require more than the resources of a local forensic lab. It may need a multilateral brainstorming team and sometimes even international cooperation. It is not only a matter of resources, but also a shift in conceptualizing the role and scope of forensic science altogether. Let us consider such a proactive approach in this recent example. In an attempt to improve the combat against newly appearing designer drugs, we considered adopting a “proactive approach”, namely trying to guess the next generation of a certain family of designer drugs. A joint team of The Hebrew University and DIFS' scientists predicted the appearance of a novel class of derivatives of a naturally occurring illicit drug. These compounds, which have never been described in the literature, were synthesized and characterized. It was found that the original drug could be readily regenerated from the new derivatives by a simple chemical process. Consequently, they can be regarded as potential pro-drugs, and their inclusion in the illicit-drugs bylaws should be considered [13]. In conclusion, proactive forensic science can improve coping with future crimes before they occur or become a real threat. This goal can be reached by developing new analytical techniques, controlling certain substances and pre-emptive legislation. Such approach can not only resolve crimes that might be unresolvable otherwise, but also save time, manpower and resources. Furthermore, they may prevent certain crimes been committed in the first place. It is recommended that future forensic conferences include sessions dedicated to the proactive philosophy, and that we start thinking, and educating forensic examiners, as proactive scientists.
References [1] I. Asimov, Nine Tomorrows, Bantam Books, New York, 1960. [2] A. Orebaugh, Proactive forensics, J. Digit. Forensic Pract. 1 (1) (2006) (Published online 23 Feb 2007 by Taylor & Francis Group). [3] C. Shields, O. Frieder, M. Maloof, A System for the Proactive, Continuous, and Efficient Collection of Digital Forensic Evidence, Digital Investigation, Elsevier, 2001. S3–S13, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.diin.2011.05.002. [4] P.G. Bradford, M. Brown, B. Self, J. Perdue, Towards proactive computer-system forensics, Proc. of the International Conference on Information Technology: Coding and, Computing (ITCC'04), 2004. [5] R.L. Brunelle, K.R. Crawford, Advances in Forensic Analysis and Dating of Writing Ink, Charles C. Thomas, Springfield, Illinois, 2003. [6] R.L. Brunelle, Ink dating — the state of the art, J. Forensic Sci. JFSCA 37 (1) (Jan 1992) 113–124. [7] S.D. Maind, S.A. Kumar, N. Chattopadhyay, Ch. Gandhi, M. Sudersanan, Analysis of Indian blue ballpoint pen inks tagged with rare-earth thenoyltrifluoroacetonates by inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry and instrumental neutron activation analysis, Forensic Sci. Int. 159 (1) (2006 May 25) 32–42. [8] Taggants in Explosives (Sanford Kadish, Chairman), NTIS order #PB80-192719, Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 80-600070, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402 Stock No. 052-003-00747-9, April 1980. [9] Marking, Rendering Inert, and Licensing of Explosive Materials: National Research Council, Interim Report. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 1997. [10] J. Flynn, M. Stoilovic, Chris Lennard, Detection and enhancement of latent fingerprints on polymer banknotes: a preliminary study, J. Forensic Identif. 49 (6) (1999) 594–613 (November/December). [11] C. Lennard, M. Stoilovic, N. Jones, C. Roux, M. Kelly, The development of latent fingerprints on polymer banknotes, J. Forensic Identif. 53 (1) (2003) 50–77 (January/February). [12] J. Weber-Lehmann, E. Schilling, G. Gradl, D.C. Richter, J. Wiehler, B. Rolf, Finding the needle in the haystack: differentiating “identical” twins in paternity testing and forensics by ultra-deep next generation sequencing, Forensic Sci. Int. Genet. 9 (2014) 42–46. [13] E. Smolianitski, E.Wolf, J. Almog, Proactive Forensic Science: A Novel Class of Cathinone Precursors, Forensic Sci. Int., (submitted, April 2014).
Joseph Almog Casali Center for Applied Chemistry, The Institute of Chemistry, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 91904, Israel
Available online xxxx
Please cite this article as: J. Almog, Forensics as a proactive science, Sci. Justice (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scijus.2014.05.008
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Science and Justice journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/scijus
Editorial
Forensics as a proactive science☆
Forensic science for the most part is reactive and responsive to crimes which have already been committed. A proactive forensic science is a conceptual change, a fundamental shift in viewing the scope and endeavor of forensic science. Proactive forensic science does not wait for a crime to be committed for it to be called into action. In his famous book “Nine Tomorrows”, Isaac Asimov, in the mid 1950's, described Multivac, the future supercomputer, which by analyzing large amounts of data could predict future crimes and inform law enforcement who prevent the crimes from ever happening in the first place [1]. We are not there yet, but proactive forensic science can certainly shorten the gap. To the best of our knowledge, in forensic research, this approach has been suggested so far only to deal with computercrimes [2–4]. The expression of proactive forensics in other areas has been very sporadic. A successful example of proactive forensic science is connected to the hope post the Oslo Accords of 1993, when the newly erected Palestinian Authority was authorized to acquire weapons for use by law enforcement agencies. The Israel Police Division of Identification and Forensic Science (DIFS), as a precautionary proactive measure, test fired the 12,000 weapons prior to their transfer to the Authority. This was contemplated to enable future firearm comparison in the event that a weapon will be misused. As events developed, the decision was fortuitous. No more than one month after the first shipment of weapons to the Palestinian Authority, an Israeli civilian was murdered in Jerusalem. Laboratory examination showed, beyond a doubt, that the murder weapon, an AK-47, was one of the weapons given over to the Authority. In other words, the proactive forensic measure enabled firearms examination to prove that weapons that were meant for law enforcement were used for murder. The importance of this case is not in terms of criminal prosecution. It is an example of using forensics as a proactive science and not only a post facto means. Forensic science, or more precisely criminalistics, as will be explained soon, is traditionally that scientific discipline which determines how a crime was committed and submits those findings to courts of law. The focus is the courtroom, and forensic scientists present testimony to clarify what happened, leaving judges and juries to rule on culpability. However, like preventive medicine, forensic science can be a powerful tool not only in traditional post-incident prosecution, but also in deterrence and reduction of crime, as it adapts to situations in which there is no court. At this point, I wish to clarify two terms that are often being used as one. We have adopted lately the following definitions for criminalistics ☆ The author is indebted to Dr. Itiel Dror, senior cognitive neuroscience researcher at the Centre for Forensic Sciences, University College London (UCL), for his critical review and helpful remarks.
and forensic science: Criminalist is a person who uses scientific and technological methods to analyze and resolve crimes, and provide courts of law with objective evidence. Forensic scientist can be a criminalist too, but he/she is involved also in research and development, in order to assist the criminalists. Proactive forensic scientists not only improve existing techniques or develop new ones, but they also try to foresee trends in future crime and develop preventive measures ahead of time. In other words, they are trying to be one step ahead of the criminals, so that when the trend changes they will be ready. Their goal is to predict and characterize new trends of crime and provide countermeasures before it becomes a real threat. Tagging of inks in the US in the 1970's, for accurate identification and dating, is one example [5–7]. Tagging of explosives for both, detection and post-blast identification, is another example [8,9]. Research conducted by the Australian NFP in the 1990's, on the development of fingerprints from new Australian currency which was made of a polymeric material, can also be regarded as proactive forensics [10,11]. Despite their potential contribution to combating crime, such examples are rare and quite often the message is not followed up. In 1977, scientists at the Soreq Nuclear Center in Israel developed a compact system that could detect concealed bombs via X-ray absorption of heavy metals such as lead and mercury, which constitute the main part of a bomb detonator. DIFS advised the Counter-Terrorism Bureau that within a short while we should expect to come across a new type of detonators which contain no heavy metals. This prediction did not raise any particular interest at the decision-making level, and there was no demand to neither suggest potential candidate materials or to develop efficient analytical tools for them. Two years later the first “fully organic” detonator was intercepted. It was based on the improvised explosive HMTD, which was encountered for the first time in terrorist activity. Its full analysis took a while. A year later, another improvised high explosive, TATP (also organic peroxide containing no metallic components), was identified for the first time in terrorist activity, and quickly became the most widespread explosive used by terrorists in the Israeli arena and in several other countries. These two explosives are extremely sensitive, and terrorists have experienced a high number of fatal labor accidents during their preparation and transportation. The DIFS has predicted that sooner or later the terrorists will switch to less sensitive improvised explosives, and indeed, in the early 2000's they started to move from TATP to the powerful, yet much less sensitive, urea nitrate. While “normal”, reactive forensic science, has become an inevitable part of law enforcement activity, from the author's experience, it is not easy to convince policy makers of the importance of proactive forensics. Several years ago DIFS scientists proposed to launch a study on the possibility of distinguishing between DNA of
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scijus.2014.05.008 1355-0306/© 2014 Forensic Science Society. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.
Please cite this article as: J. Almog, Forensics as a proactive science, Sci. Justice (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scijus.2014.05.008
2
Editorial
monozygotic twins. The request was turned down on “irrelevance” ground: “Years may pass until we encounter such need” was the answer. Ironically, four relevant cases have been encountered already. A solution to the problem was suggested lately by Eurofins' scientists in Germany [12]. The applied nature of forensic science and its conception as helping the legal justice system solving crimes that have already happened, makes it hard to develop its proactive role. To adopt the proactive forensics concept successfully may require more than the resources of a local forensic lab. It may need a multilateral brainstorming team and sometimes even international cooperation. It is not only a matter of resources, but also a shift in conceptualizing the role and scope of forensic science altogether. Let us consider such a proactive approach in this recent example. In an attempt to improve the combat against newly appearing designer drugs, we considered adopting a “proactive approach”, namely trying to guess the next generation of a certain family of designer drugs. A joint team of The Hebrew University and DIFS' scientists predicted the appearance of a novel class of derivatives of a naturally occurring illicit drug. These compounds, which have never been described in the literature, were synthesized and characterized. It was found that the original drug could be readily regenerated from the new derivatives by a simple chemical process. Consequently, they can be regarded as potential pro-drugs, and their inclusion in the illicit-drugs bylaws should be considered [13]. In conclusion, proactive forensic science can improve coping with future crimes before they occur or become a real threat. This goal can be reached by developing new analytical techniques, controlling certain substances and pre-emptive legislation. Such approach can not only resolve crimes that might be unresolvable otherwise, but also save time, manpower and resources. Furthermore, they may prevent certain crimes been committed in the first place. It is recommended that future forensic conferences include sessions dedicated to the proactive philosophy, and that we start thinking, and educating forensic examiners, as proactive scientists.
References [1] I. Asimov, Nine Tomorrows, Bantam Books, New York, 1960. [2] A. Orebaugh, Proactive forensics, J. Digit. Forensic Pract. 1 (1) (2006) (Published online 23 Feb 2007 by Taylor & Francis Group). [3] C. Shields, O. Frieder, M. Maloof, A System for the Proactive, Continuous, and Efficient Collection of Digital Forensic Evidence, Digital Investigation, Elsevier, 2001. S3–S13, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.diin.2011.05.002. [4] P.G. Bradford, M. Brown, B. Self, J. Perdue, Towards proactive computer-system forensics, Proc. of the International Conference on Information Technology: Coding and, Computing (ITCC'04), 2004. [5] R.L. Brunelle, K.R. Crawford, Advances in Forensic Analysis and Dating of Writing Ink, Charles C. Thomas, Springfield, Illinois, 2003. [6] R.L. Brunelle, Ink dating — the state of the art, J. Forensic Sci. JFSCA 37 (1) (Jan 1992) 113–124. [7] S.D. Maind, S.A. Kumar, N. Chattopadhyay, Ch. Gandhi, M. Sudersanan, Analysis of Indian blue ballpoint pen inks tagged with rare-earth thenoyltrifluoroacetonates by inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry and instrumental neutron activation analysis, Forensic Sci. Int. 159 (1) (2006 May 25) 32–42. [8] Taggants in Explosives (Sanford Kadish, Chairman), NTIS order #PB80-192719, Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 80-600070, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402 Stock No. 052-003-00747-9, April 1980. [9] Marking, Rendering Inert, and Licensing of Explosive Materials: National Research Council, Interim Report. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 1997. [10] J. Flynn, M. Stoilovic, Chris Lennard, Detection and enhancement of latent fingerprints on polymer banknotes: a preliminary study, J. Forensic Identif. 49 (6) (1999) 594–613 (November/December). [11] C. Lennard, M. Stoilovic, N. Jones, C. Roux, M. Kelly, The development of latent fingerprints on polymer banknotes, J. Forensic Identif. 53 (1) (2003) 50–77 (January/February). [12] J. Weber-Lehmann, E. Schilling, G. Gradl, D.C. Richter, J. Wiehler, B. Rolf, Finding the needle in the haystack: differentiating “identical” twins in paternity testing and forensics by ultra-deep next generation sequencing, Forensic Sci. Int. Genet. 9 (2014) 42–46. [13] E. Smolianitski, E.Wolf, J. Almog, Proactive Forensic Science: A Novel Class of Cathinone Precursors, Forensic Sci. Int., (submitted, April 2014).
Joseph Almog Casali Center for Applied Chemistry, The Institute of Chemistry, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 91904, Israel
Available online xxxx
Please cite this article as: J. Almog, Forensics as a proactive science, Sci. Justice (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scijus.2014.05.008