Monday, May 18, 2009

Forensic Facial Composite Software effective In Police Investigations

This new software, EFIT-V, allows witnesses to look at a wide range of computer generated images of possible suspects and then pick the ones that best fit the characteristics of the suspect. After repeating this process many times, a very accurate picture of the suspect will have been constructed. This process of constructing a picture of the suspect is infinitely less painstaking and difficult then having a police artist ask victims or witnesses questions in concerns with the suspect's facial features. Most of the time, witnesses/victims are not able to successfully verbalize what they see the suspect as in their head. As stated by Stuart Gibson from the University of Kent, most suspects are unable to describe facial features of an individual if they have only seen them for a brief period of time, however, it is very easy to identify facial features of an individual when picking between numerous pictures. Several trial runs of this software have been conducted in the UK and have were extremely successful. At this point in time, twelve UK police agencies are using this software for everyday law enforcement. Forensic Software such as EFIT-V, will make a huge impact on police arrests over the next few years. EFIT-V will make suspect identification a more successful and manageable task for both detectives and witnesses across the world. Hopefully, within the next few years EFIT-V will be used in all law enforcement agencies around the world.

6 comments:

Morgan09 said...

Max's article was very interesting and has not been mentioned before. He did a very good job at explaining how this new process would be beneficial to police investigations and forensic science. I would have liked to know what the main differences are between the new and old method, such as how the data is collected and what type of system is used.

Schuyler said...

This posting was very interesting. I am actually surprised that nothing like this has been used before, as it seems like a very good idea. I think that this person did a good job of explaining the process clearly, and I was pleased to hear that the new computer generated images are in fact very successful. Max did a good job of describing what was wrong with the previous system, "This process of constructing a picture of the suspect is infinitely less painstaking and difficult then having a police artist ask victims or witnesses questions in concerns with the suspect's facial features", and also described what this new system will do to change these problems. Overall I thought this was an extremely good summary of this information, and I can't wait to hear more about it.

laurabora said...

This was a really interesting article and I learned a lot. I think you used a lot of good details and you were very good at explaining it without over explaining.

BXV2009 (John) said...

Nice job, Max. I like the way you explained what the software is, what it's supposed to do, etc. I think it would be useful if you stated what EFIT-V stands for.

Again, nice job.

James Donner said...

Max's article was very interesting and has not been mentioned before. I think you used a lot of good details and you were very good at explaining it without over explaining.Max did a good job of describing what was wrong with the previous system, and also described what this new system will do to change these problems.

James Donner said...

Max's article was very interesting and has not been mentioned before. I think you used a lot of good details and you were very good at explaining it without over explaining.Max did a good job of describing what was wrong with the previous system, and also described what this new system will do to change these problems.