An Exploration of the Personal Experiences of Forensic Scene Investigators’ Daily Work:   An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

Zoe Alexander; Juliane A. Kloess; Michael Larkin

doi:10.1007/s11896-025-09745-7

An Exploration of the Personal Experiences of Forensic Scene Investigators’ Daily Work: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

Zoe Alexander
, Juliane A. Kloess^*
, Michael Larkin

^*Corresponding author for this work

School of Psychology

University College Birmingham
Edinburgh Napier University

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

2 Citations (SciVal)

26 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Police officers are significantly more likely than other emergency workers to experience mental health issues (MIND (2015) Blue Light Scoping Survey. https://www.mind.org.uk/media-a/4857/scoping-survey.pdf) and significantly more likely than the general population to develop post-traumatic stress disorder (Bell and Eski, Policing 10:95–101, 2015). More specifically, forensic scene investigators (FSIs; also known as crime scene investigators) are a sub-group of police officers who are exposed to distressing material as part of gathering forensic evidence from crime scenes. Recent studies have suggested that FSIs are at risk of high levels of stress and trauma responses (Clark RD, Distelrath C, Vaquera GS, Winterich D, DeZolt E (2015) Critical-incident trauma and crime scene investigation: a review of police organizational challenges and interventions. J Forens Identification 65(6):929–951. https://collected.jcu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1033&context=soc-facpub) and (Mrevlje, Rorschachiana 39:1–19, 2018). Despite this, research into the personal experiences of FSIs is sparse. The present study therefore specifically explored the lived experiences of FSIs and their daily work using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Seven FSIs from a specialist unit within a UK police force took part in semi-structured interviews. Two superordinate themes were identified: (i) The psychological impact of being an FSI is high and requires personal sacrifice and (ii) The organisation does not care about reducing our stress—it increases it. All participants talked about the psychological impact of working as an FSI and the need to emotionally detach to be able to function/work in the role. Findings are discussed in relation to theoretical and practical implications, as well as directions for future research.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	529-541
Number of pages	13
Journal	Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology
Volume	40
Issue number	3
Early online date	10 Apr 2025
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/s11896-025-09745-7
Publication status	Published - 1 Sept 2025

Bibliographical note

Copyright © The Author(s) 2025. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Data Access Statement

The data collected and analysed in this qualitative study are not publicly available due to the sensitive nature of the research. More specifically, the interview data represent personal accounts from participants.

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 3 Good Health and Well-being
SDG 16 Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions

Keywords

Coping
Crime scene investigators
Forensic scene investigators
Mental health
Psychological impact

Access to Document

10.1007/s11896-025-09745-7Licence: CC BY 4.0

An Exploration of the Personal Experiences of Forensic Scene Investigators’ Daily Work
Copyright © The Author(s) 2025. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Final published version, 669 KBLicence: CC BY 4.0

Cite this

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abstract = "Police officers are significantly more likely than other emergency workers to experience mental health issues (MIND (2015) Blue Light Scoping Survey. https://www.mind.org.uk/media-a/4857/scoping-survey.pdf) and significantly more likely than the general population to develop post-traumatic stress disorder (Bell and Eski, Policing 10:95–101, 2015). More specifically, forensic scene investigators (FSIs; also known as crime scene investigators) are a sub-group of police officers who are exposed to distressing material as part of gathering forensic evidence from crime scenes. Recent studies have suggested that FSIs are at risk of high levels of stress and trauma responses (Clark RD, Distelrath C, Vaquera GS, Winterich D, DeZolt E (2015) Critical-incident trauma and crime scene investigation: a review of police organizational challenges and interventions. J Forens Identification 65(6):929–951. https://collected.jcu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1033\&context=soc-facpub) and (Mrevlje, Rorschachiana 39:1–19, 2018). Despite this, research into the personal experiences of FSIs is sparse. The present study therefore specifically explored the lived experiences of FSIs and their daily work using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Seven FSIs from a specialist unit within a UK police force took part in semi-structured interviews. Two superordinate themes were identified: (i) The psychological impact of being an FSI is high and requires personal sacrifice and (ii) The organisation does not care about reducing our stress—it increases it. All participants talked about the psychological impact of working as an FSI and the need to emotionally detach to be able to function/work in the role. Findings are discussed in relation to theoretical and practical implications, as well as directions for future research.",

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AB - Police officers are significantly more likely than other emergency workers to experience mental health issues (MIND (2015) Blue Light Scoping Survey. https://www.mind.org.uk/media-a/4857/scoping-survey.pdf) and significantly more likely than the general population to develop post-traumatic stress disorder (Bell and Eski, Policing 10:95–101, 2015). More specifically, forensic scene investigators (FSIs; also known as crime scene investigators) are a sub-group of police officers who are exposed to distressing material as part of gathering forensic evidence from crime scenes. Recent studies have suggested that FSIs are at risk of high levels of stress and trauma responses (Clark RD, Distelrath C, Vaquera GS, Winterich D, DeZolt E (2015) Critical-incident trauma and crime scene investigation: a review of police organizational challenges and interventions. J Forens Identification 65(6):929–951. https://collected.jcu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1033&context=soc-facpub) and (Mrevlje, Rorschachiana 39:1–19, 2018). Despite this, research into the personal experiences of FSIs is sparse. The present study therefore specifically explored the lived experiences of FSIs and their daily work using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Seven FSIs from a specialist unit within a UK police force took part in semi-structured interviews. Two superordinate themes were identified: (i) The psychological impact of being an FSI is high and requires personal sacrifice and (ii) The organisation does not care about reducing our stress—it increases it. All participants talked about the psychological impact of working as an FSI and the need to emotionally detach to be able to function/work in the role. Findings are discussed in relation to theoretical and practical implications, as well as directions for future research.

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