Scenes Of Crime Officers

Scenes Of Crime Officers or SOCO's for short are the team that attend the crime scene after a crime has been committed to look for, then correctly and securely collect any evidence they find for it to be later examined. Scenes of crime officers will attend crime scenes by request by the lead of the case, by now they will either be the detective or the specialist team. SOCO’s will gather and analyse facts, the facts are the pieces of evidence at the crime scene that they find. SOCO's have many roles and responsibilities within the criminal investigation such as preventing the contamination of evidence at a crime scene, the SOCO's will ensure this by wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) these are goggles, gloves and a full body protective suit, face mask and shoe covers, this not only prevents contamination of the crime scene but it also ensures that nothing will get on the SOCO's that they could potentially bring with them, i.e. drugs or blood, PPE protects the crime scene as well as the wearer. Once SOCO's are ready to enter the crime scene they need to establish a common approach path (CAP) this is a safe pathway into the crime scene which will allow access into the scene without any evidence from being contaminated or destroyed. Once the SOCO's are in the crime scene they are in charge of identifying any potential evidence such as blood and drugs, they do this so that the evidence is able to be analysed enabling them to build up a file aka a portfolio on the case and the evidence they find, this helps to potentially find the suspect(s). Once they have established the evidence they are in charge of correctly packaging the evidence to prevent and damage or contamination, for certain evidence they have to use the correct technique for example the correct technique to collect a shoe print.

In the case of Christine Jessop when she went missing it was believed to be no need for SOCO's to come as there was no crime scene, this mean the detectives were in charge of collecting any evidence they found, the evidence found was incorrectly packaged and was left in a patrol car over the weekend, the SOCO's could have potentially found more evidence and would have correctly packaged and stored the evidence. When it came to the crime scene where her body was found there was no reports on whether SOCO's had been called as it was a different state.


SOCO's will only be involved in investigations when they requested to by the lead investigators either a detective or a specialist unit. In every investigation a SOCO attends their roles and responsibilities will be identify and collect evidence that is relevant to the case. The type of evidence a SOCO collects is the component which differs depending on the crime that has been committed. for example in a murder the SOCO would collect any blood evidence or potential murder weapons, as these are relevant to the case. Whereas if working at a burglary they would collect fibres, shoe prints and possible blood if they cut them selves on glass on the window for example.