Method lets law enforcement identify criminals' footwear
Marie Donlon | March 30, 2023Researchers from Staffordshire University, Huddersfield University and Yorkshire and the Humber Regional Scientific Support Services (YatH RSSS) have developed a new method for helping to assist in the comparison and interpretation of footwear mark evidence.
According to the researchers, the so-called 'assault course' collects data that can be used to verify footwear mark evidence left by criminals at a crime scene. To develop the course, the researchers focused on the footwear worn most frequently by detainees in custody alongside the most commonly identified tread patterns found at crime scenes based on data held in the National Footwear Database.
Source: Yorkshire and the Humber Regional Scientific Support Services (YatH RSSS)
"To maintain and improve reliability of results, we wanted to develop a standardized approach for 'ground truth data' collection so that multiple units can create and use one large dataset to support the comparison of footwear mark evidence," the researchers explained.
To collect data specific to footwear mark evidence — partial marks, the substance the mark has been made in and distortions affecting the quality of the marks — researchers enlisted participants to assist with data collection.
The volunteers, with various shoe-sizes, were tasked with repeatedly walking the same route each day to show the progression of wear from brand new to worn-out shoes. Furter, the volunteers also created mock crime scene marks at specific intervals as the treads wore down. Additionally, the course also captured footwear marks, featuring various substances such as dirt, dust and mud, that volunteers deposited with their shoes on various surface types — wood, laminate flooring, paper and a uPVC windowsill.
The team also created twisting marks — the kind sometimes found on windowsills from breaking and entering events — as well as kick marks on doors and other points of entry.
Once the researchers recorded, analyzed and catalogued the footwear marks, they used the data to create the so-called ground truth database that the team now employs to research and support evidential comparisons. The researchers suggest that database could be used as a “toolkit” for law enforcement.
The approach is detailed in the article, Planning and developing a method for collecting ground truth data relating to footwear mark evidence, which appears in the journal Science & Justice.