News Releases

UWI Archaeology Lecturer to release ‘Crime Solving Toolkit'

For Release Upon Receipt - April 14, 2009

St. Augustine


A new book edited by an Archaeology Lecturer at The University of the West Indies (UWI St. Augustine) could be a key tool in criminal prosecution and crime reduction in the Caribbean.

A Crime Solving Toolkit: Forensics in the Caribbean, edited by Archaeologist Dr Basil Reid, examines diverse perspectives on forensics within the Caribbean such as shoe-print identification, suicide hangings, disaster-victim identification protocols, forensic anthropology, computer forensics and forensic linguistics.   Spiralling crime rates in the Caribbean have captured the attention of Caribbean policymakers, and forensics could prove to be one critical piece of the region’s criminological puzzle.

Although forensic sciences have been applied in the Caribbean for decades, the vast majority of forensic publications have focused on North America and Europe. This volume provides prescriptive formulas to mitigate the rising crime in this region and is therefore of particular interest to Caribbean policymakers, lawyers, police officers, anthropologists, computer specialists and interested members of the public.

The volume is truly representative of the Caribbean, as there are case studies from Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Jamaica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Dominican Republic and Guatemala. There is even a chapter on a case of suicide hanging in Sweden, which is related to the Caribbean.

Contributors to the volume include Cheryl A. Corbin, Sheau-Dong Lang, Nazir Alladin, Parris Lyew-Ayee, Trevor Modeste, Godfrey A. Steele and Calle Winskog.

Ben Bowling, Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at King’s College, London, says: “This book makes significant contributions to this rapidly developing field. Its practical approach will be of great value in developing crime-scene investigation and forensic science analysis within the Caribbean region and beyond.”  

Copies of the book will soon be available at UWI Bookshop.

 

 

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