Crime scene: Encyclopedia - Crime scene

Crime scene

A crime scene is a location where an illegal act took place, and comprises the area from which most of the physical evidence is retrieved by forensic scientists. A crime scene is a location wherein evidence of a crime may be located. It is not necessarily the location the crime took place. Indeed, there are primary, secondary and often tertiary crime scenes. For instance, the police may use a warrant to search an offender's home. Even though the offender did not commit the crime at that location evidence of the crime may be found there. In another instance, an offender might kidnap at one location (primary crime scene), transport the victim (the car is a second crime scene), commit another crime at a distant location (murder, for instance)and then drop the body at a fourth scene.

All locations wherein there is the potential for the recovery of evidence must be handled in the same manner. Legal concepts impacting the usefulness of evidence in court (Daubert, chain of custody, etc), apply to the recovery of evidence whether or not a crime actually occurred at that location.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Crime scene", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki