Awareness level on the relevance of forensics in criminal investigation in Nigeria

Abstract

The main aim of forensic science is to gather intelligence to enable the judge to credible and logical decisions in the court by means of scientific approach through evaluation of evidence for the administration of justice, and country around the world now considers forensic methodology as the gold standard for criminal investigation. Therefore, the present study examined the level of awareness on the relevance of forensics in criminal investigation in Nigeria. The design used in this study is the survey research design and the sample size of this study was a total of one hundred personnel of law enforcement and the judiciary. The study adopted descriptive statistics which involves the use of frequency and percentage. The result of the present study revealed that the participants were distributed socio-demographically as follows; there was an observable higher number of male participants (68%) relative to the female participants (32%), As per age distribution, a larger population of the participants were found to be > 40 years of age with 55%, and it was observed that age between 35-39 years ranked the least with 15%. On educational level, the result of the present study revealed that majority of the participants possesses a bachelor’s degree as the highest level of educational qualification with 75% from a pool of 100% of participants. The present study further examined responses on the relevance of forensics in criminal investigation, and the result revealed an inadequate level of awareness on the relevance of forensics in criminal investigation. Therefore, the study recommends that the Nigerian Police Force and the Judiciary should collaborate with Universities running programs on forensics for trainings.