1 Crime scene to court
Look at the crime scene to courtroom process diagram. Click on the tiles labelled with the different roles to find out what each person does.
Activity 1 Considering other perspectives
Now, considering this process above, listen to an account of what happened.
Now listen to Dave’s experience.
If you were Dave, what would you think about the police?
Research shows that public trust in the police has been declining (Cotter, 2015). Recent surveys indicate confidence fell from 58% in 2019 to 49% in 2022 (YouGov, 2019; 2022). Dave’s feelings about the police might be representative of the general public’s view. It can be difficult to distinguish between trust in the police and trust in forensic science evidence, since the two are often connected. For marginalised communities, such as ethnic minorities or those with prior negative experiences of law enforcement, this distinction can be even more blurred — people may trust the science but distrust the system delivering it (Trust interviews, 2025).
OpenLearn - Do you trust forensic science in the criminal justice system?
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