Reliability of bloodhounds in criminal investigations.
Anecdotal evidence and legend have suggested that bloodhounds are capable of trailing and alerting to a human by his or her individual scent. This same evidence may be presented to a court of law in order to accuse a particular suspect or suspects of a crime. There is little to no scientific evidence confirming the bloodhound's ability to trail and discriminate the scent of different individual humans. Eight bloodhounds (3 novice and 5 veteran), trained in human scent discrimination were used to determine the reliability of evidence, garnered through the use of bloodhounds, in a court of law. These dogs were placed on trails in an environment that simulated real-life scenarios. Results indicate that a veteran bloodhound can trail and correctly identify a person under various conditions. These data suggest that the potential error rate of a veteran bloodhound-handler team is low and can be a useful tool for law enforcement personnel.
Harvey
Lisa M
LM
Victor Valley College, Department of Biology, Victorville, CA 92392, USA.
Harvey
Jeffrey W
JW
D000818:Animals; D004285:Dogs / Q000502:physiology*; D005554:Forensic Medicine / Q000379:methods*; D009812:Odorants / Q000032:analysis*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012903:Smell / Q000502:physiology*; D014887:Weather