Despite popular belief there's little joy or appetite in ruining someone's business or livelihood, even the worst of criminals have innocent dependents. Indeed many of us conspicuously go to great lengths to avoid this where ever possible - but unfortunately we are frequently required to undertake tasks beyond our direct control or influence; you just have to get on with it.
Property storage has long been a serious problem for the Police, the difficulties seem to multiply incrementally with each passing year. Each station contains secure holding stores (and now frequently overspill locked offices and garages) absolutely crammed with found and 'miscellaneous' property of all kinds awaiting collection by owners (or their agents) who, for what ever reason never seem to turn up for it; not to mention those owners who cannot, or will not, be readily traced.
Patrol officers and Detectives are routinely bombarded with urgent disposal requests and owner trace enquiries. Its a major pain in the arse.
The issues surrounding Crime Property is nothing short of a logistical nightmare; it is hugely costly and ludicrously manpower intensive. For example (and I'll exclude all IT related items for now):
1) We have to be able to produce a meticulous audit trail from the point of initial seizure, through all the forensic or other examinations, including transit and temporary storage all the way up to trial - and often for many years beyond. Errors or gaps in the audit trail will invariably render the evidence inadmissible.
2) Much of this can be large or bulky items such as cars, furniture/bedding, kitchen appliances, baths and WC's etc or multiple items (we recently seized over 500 shotguns stashed by dealer who turned to the dark side)
3) Significant quantities of crime property can be fragile, subject to decay, carcinogenic, toxic, otherwise hazardous or dangerous; all of which will require special handling, packaging and storage. In my time I've seized prodigious quantities of explosives, munitions, acids, poisons (including a Tupperware box full of liquid cyanide stored in a garden shed adjoining to a primary school!), radioactive articles not to mention prodigious quantities of drugs and booby trapped items (thank you so much IRA & ALF!)
4) An ever increasing proportion of crime property requires preservation for DNA or other specialist forensic examination, this dictates specific handling, packaging and storage - the demands of which evolve as quickly as the science advances. It is clearly only a matter of time before SOCOs (UK CSI) and Police Search Teams are required to wear total environmental protection suits and BA lest their forensic evidence is dismissible as potentially contaminated (breath born Officer DNA has already been considered as a defence).
5) In many cases that either go to trial - or remain unsolved - the police are required to safely preserve all of the related case and enquiry papers (often a van full) and all of the evidence (including human remains and DNA) in case of subsequent appeal. This will never be less than 5 years and in the unsolved matters, for decades; as illustrated by the increasing number of Cold Case reinvestigations from the pre-DNA days which have since become solvable.
For example, in one serious night club shooting we were required to seize and preserve every item that a) potentially bore traces of DNA (bottles, glasses, cans, fag ends, lolly sticks, chewing gum etc) and b) map exactly where in the building each item was found and what relationship it was to everything else discovered (contemplate the logistics of that for a second). It took the best part of a week and produced one and a half removal vans full of plastic bags. The case has long since been to trial and the offender convicted of multiple shootings but all of the seized evidence is still being stored in a secure and protected warehouse; audit trail still intact. The rental of such warehouses costs the Police a small fortune - and we are rapidly running out of space and secure locations - we'd rather we didn't have to, but we are not given the choice.
Incidentally, despite the offender's constant denials and apparently bullet proof alibi ('scuse pun), the HO laboratory conclusively found his DNA amongst all those items thus putting him squarely at the scene (finding the gun components in his washing machine's motor and rammed up the WC U-bend helped a bit too!)
With regard to Computers and storage devices, they are invariably examined by a High Tech Crime Unit which are usually civilian employees. Whenever there is a known potential for problems such as cunning encryption, PGP (or similar), LAN/WLAN storage etc the HTCU usually turn up with the Search Team. With the notable exception of Paedophiles and Animal Rights Groups, few people seem concerned enough to secure or conceal their data regardless how incriminating or otherwise it might be.
Evidential seizures are invariably dictated by the terms of a Warrant, the Warrants are sworn out by one of the investigating officers. In the majority of cases, such searches are carried out by a specialist Police Search Teams who will have no other knowledge of or involvement in the case, indeed in the larger forces the Search Officers will not even know the investigating officers in question. The Searchers are usually uniformed officers and tend to cherish their independence, particularly as they go from job to job and go to great lengths to avoid unnecessary court appearances - and you do that by being systematic, meticulous, structured and strictly accountable - this is where that particular job satisfaction lies.
Search Teams usually contain one or two computer literate officers, but not necessarily so; but then again they are also likely to contain those trained or interested in mechanics, construction, electric's, body recovery, diving, working at heights or in confined spaces and a myriad of other skills of relevance to the varied demands of that role.
Like so many aspects of Police work, the quality of Warrant execution and dedication of such Search Teams varies from Force to Force - and as in most matters, the MET are conspicuously different in their approach both in terms of professionalism and ability - there is a certain (and not always desirable) 'liassez-faire' inherent in the larger metropolitan Forces. The recent non-warrant search of the Parliamentary offices being yet another typical MET balls-up that's once again left the rest of us disappointed, bemused but not in the least surprised!
To assert, however, that Police routinely seize property as part of the 'punishment' process is a nonsensical exaggeration with no constructive purpose. Yes, like in every other occupation, there are dumb heads at work in our midst's but the vast majority of experienced officers (and I concede that's increasingly becoming an oxymoron) have a fairly well developed sense of stoical indifference: you'll have long since learned to maintain a health detachment and avoid personal involvement where ever possible; you simply couldn't function otherwise - I've just attended my 38th murder scene in the last 7 years.
In the modern Police Force, pitfalls, cock-up, allegations and criticism await you at every opportunity, so why risk your career and pension over events that, in reality, have little lasting consequence to you? Its illogical, unnecessary and utterly pointless. None of which I know fits the prevailing prejudice here, but at least I've got it off my chest.
Fire away.
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