Public and family support and concerns for providing DNA to law enforcement in long-term missing person cases

The identification of long-term missing persons and unidentified human remains is a global challenge. Many people stay on missing persons registers, with unidentified human remains stored for extended periods in mortuaries around the world. Research exploring public and/or family support for providing DNA in long-term missing persons cases is scarce. The aims of this study were to examine whether trust in police predicted the level of support for providing DNA and explore public/family support and concerns for providing DNA in such cases. Trust in police was measured through two widely used empirical attitude scales; “The Measures of Police Legitimacy and Procedural Justice”. Support and concerns for giving DNA were measured through four hypothetical missing persons case scenarios. The results showed more positive attitudes towards police legitimacy and procedural justice significantly predicted support, with the percentage level of positive support across the four case types as follows: cases involving a long-term missing child (89%), elderly adult with dementia (83%), young adult with a history of runaway (76%), with the lowest level of support for an adult with an estranged family (73%). Participants also reported more concerns about providing DNA when the missing person circumstances involved family estrangement. Understanding levels of public/family support and concerns around providing DNA to police in missing persons cases is vital to ensure that DNA collection practices reflect what the public/family support and, wherever possible, alleviate public concerns.     

The effects of four different solvent vapours on the restoration of obliterated stamp markings from five different wooden surfaces

The stamp markings on wooden surfaces, which are placed on trees and products including antiques, indicate the status of trees and involve identifying data regarding the products. Such markings are obliterated either to facilitate illegal logging or to conceal product information. Despite the wide literature on the restoration of obliterated characters on metal and polymer surfaces, the recovery of defaced characters on wooden surfaces appears to be understudied. Several reference texts in the forensic marks’ examination literature suggest that water, water vapor, and alkaline solutions are useful in restoring the abraded markings on the wood. Since there does not seem to be any experimental study proving such success, this study aimed to fill this gap. This study conducted experimental research by using water, ethanol, ammonia, and chloroform to recover the scraped characters on samples obtained from walnut, beech, spruce, oak, and cedar trees. The cold-stamped characters, which were defaced at varying depths, were restored using vapor and liquid phases of four solvents. While the vapor phases of water, ethanol, and ammonia yielded good outcomes on all types of wooden surfaces, the liquid phases did not seem to be useful in the revisualization process. The response of the vapors, which varied between 62 and 220 s, depended on the type of wood. The restoration technique developed in this research offers the possibility of on-site usage, easy application, utilization of low-cost solvents, rapid recovery, and effectiveness on various wooden surfaces. Overall, the restoration methodology used in this research appears to be fruitful in retrieving identifying information on wooden samples.