S.O.C.O stands for Scene of the Crime officers
S.O.C.Os use Forensic Science to investigate a crime scene
They collect forensic evidence - stuff that has been left behind at a crime scene to help them work out who committed the crime.
S.O.C.Os assist the police with their investigations of a crime.

Using a special type of powder S.O.C.Os can find fingerprints. It's called dusting for prints, and it’s usually the first step when investigating a crime scene. You can’t get fingerprints off everything, but you can get them off most smooth surfaces.

Everyone’s fingerprints are different and unique to them. Your fingerprints never change your whole life. Your fingers might get bigger as you grow but your prints stay the same.

In a forensics lab scientists do all sorts of tests on the things they find at the crime scene, to find out who they belong to. Some of the things that they may test are hairs, saliva or blood found at a crime scene to see who’s DNA they contain.

DNA is basically what makes you you. It’s like your body's own little rule book of how everything goes together and like fingerprints everyone’s DNA is different.

DNA is contained in anything that might come off your body; hair, flakes of skin, fingernails and bodily fluids like saliva (spit)

At outdoor crime scenes evidence can easily be cleared away by the weather so S.O.C.Os have to work quickly to gather as much evidnece as they can.

S.O.C.Os will sometimes make a copy of a footprint, if there's one at the crime scene, so they can try to match the shoe tracks to the shoes of the person they’re looking for later on.

The S.O.C.Os job is to gather as much evidence as possible at a crime scene, to help discover and prove who committed the crime.

Did you know?

One of the earliest uses of Forensics Science is by Archimedes a ancient mathematician and philosopher. By showing people how a gold coin reacted and floated when he placed it in water, Archimedes was able to prove that a coin wasn’t made out of gold as someone had said it was.

The first written account of using science to solve a crime is from China in about 1248. By gathering local farmers after a crime had happened, a investigator watched to see if flies were attracted to blood on a piece of farm equipment. When the flies were attracted to one farmer in particular the investigator was able to catch the criminal, who confessed to his crime when the flies landed on his farm equipment.

The world’s most famous fictional detective Sherlock Holmes often used to solve crimes using forsenic science.  The author of his books Sir Arthur Conan Doyle went to medical school in Scotland, and his teacher, Joseph Bell, was a detective and a medical surgeon.

Some different types of forsenic science are : Forensic odontology (dental evidence using people’s teeth), Forensic palynology (study of pollen and powered minerals),Forensic Toxicology (study of chemicals/poisons on living things) and Forensic entomology (study of insects).

Every cell in a person's skin, blood, saliva, or other body part contains a molecule called DNA. No two people (except identical twins) have the same DNA. In the 1980s, scientists figured out how to use DNA as a sort of molecular fingerprint. Since then, DNA testing has become a big part of forensic science.

Forensics is about more than just bones, blood and all the other yucky stuff you sometimes see on TV. It also helps keep us safe: for example in America and Australia customs officers often wipe people’s bags with a special cloth swab and then put the bag and the cloth swab through a machine. The machine and swab actually catch people who are carrying explosives by analysing particles from the bag.

The field of forensic science is so big that it takes a long time to learn. You normally need university degrees in more than one science, as well as training in medicine.

We don't have C.S.I. officers in New Zealand - they're American Criminal Science Investigators.