The DCI was speaking on Friday during a visit by President Uhuru Kenyatta at the DCI, the first ever by a Head of State, where he vowed to sustain the graft crackdown, “without fear or favour.”/PSCU
NAIROBI, Kenya, 25- Director of Criminal Investigations George Kinoti says Biological, Chemistry, Toxicological and DNA laboratories will be equipped to be operational in the next 2 months.
The laboratories are housed in the newly constructed multi-million shilling National Police Service Forensic Laboratory based at the Directorate of Criminal Investigations headquarters on Kiambu Road.
This means investigations in the country are set to be enhanced and become expeditious, once the laboratory is functional.
The DCI was speaking on Friday during a visit by President Uhuru Kenyatta at the DCI, the first ever by a Head of State, where he vowed to sustain the graft crackdown, “without fear or favour.”
Upon his appointment, DCI Kinoti said “I noticed gaps in terms of crime research that impaired seriously on criminal intelligence and general crime management.”
As a result, he has since formed a Crime Research Intelligence unit that will help in fighting graft and other emerging security challenges in the country.
-About the laboratory-
It will be a game changer in the Criminal Justice System since it will among other things ensure court cases are backed by well-documented evidence, enhancing chances of successful prosecutions.
“We will be able to do proper investigations; we will back up what we have done with scientific proof,” he said.
“Everything will be located here. It will be integrated to bring in other facilities located elsewhere.”
– Importance of a forensic laboratory –
The most important aspects of criminal justice is forensic science, or the practice of scientifically examining physical evidence collected from the scene of a crime or a person of interest in a crime.
A case in point is when human remains are found dumped say in a river and have decayed to the point where they cannot be recognised.
Forensic scientists use DNA from the body, do dental checks and even study the skeletal structure to determine who the person was.
It can also help in identifying the gender as well as the cause of death and whether foul play was involved.
Two of the most common crimes that are determined in the forensic science laboratories are drug-related and sex crimes.
It is in the crime lab that the chemical makeup of an unidentified substance recovered from a suspect is determined to be cocaine, marijuana or other controlled substances.
This can be used as evidence in court to prove that a person was in possession of illegal drugs.
Such a laboratory will also be used in an identification process of a cyber crime culprit.
Databases are searched, IP addresses are traced and documents are recovered by computer forensic specialists to determine who was responsible for a certain crime.
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