Stories

Whether finding clues to bring criminals to justice, or protecting the innocent from wrongful conviction, forensic science techniques are among the most important law enforcement tools. As digitalization becomes ubiquitous, it’s imperative that police are equipped with the modern, innovative forensic capabilities they need to better serve and protect the public.

Since 2017, KBR has been working to meet that need in the U.K., acting as delivery partner for the government-funded Transforming Forensics (TF) Programme. TF facilitates the design and creation of enhanced forensic capabilities that in turn enable the criminal justice system to provide better services. KBR has been instrumental to the program’s success, delivering the coordinated, advanced products and services required by law enforcement officials to meet the demands of today and the future.

Through TF, KBR played a key role in the creation of the Forensic Capability Network (FCN), U.K. policing’s new national networked approach to forensic science. It has also driven the development of FCN Xchange, the first ever national digital platform for forensics in UK policing, and is helping police forces in England and Wales improve how they respond to serious rape and serious sexual offences (RASSO) through a new £5m project, announced by the U.K. government on 18 June 2021.

Delivering a National Digital Platform for Forensics

FCN Xchange is a secure, cloud-based platform that enables police forces to connect with each other, share data and services, and access new digital forensics tools. It is the first of its kind in U.K policing and will support forensics teams to increase productivity, speed up turnaround times, and deliver higher-quality analysis of evidence for investigations. It will also provide nationally consistent, standardized processes and enable forces to work better together, making them more effective and resilient.

The first tool to be deployed on FCN Xchange is a new digital fingerprint capability which, for the first time, digitizes the fingerprint process end to end, improving the speed, quantity and quality of evidence available to investigators, and helping identify victims and offenders more rapidly. The new approach will also be more efficient and effective. Find out more about the capability.

Following the digital fingerprint capability, other data-driven services will be added to FCN Xchange in the coming months, including FCN’s new electronic quality management system.

New RASSO project

KBR is also supporting a new £5m TF project aiming to help police forces in England and Wales improve how they respond to RASSO crimes.

Providing a range of new portable digital tools, the project will enable forces to take technology to RASSO victims, examine mobile and digital devices at crime scenes, and give investigators faster access to the right digital evidence. The aim is to deliver a faster, safer and more sensitive service for those affected by RASSO crimes, to bring better evidence to court and, ultimately, to improve criminal justice outcomes increasing confidence in the U.K. criminal justice system.

The project will offer forces three types of tech:

• Mobile digital forensic units, unmarked and equipped with state-of-the-art tools
• Portable ruggedised kit including digital forensic laptops, mobiles and specialist software
• Kiosks which upgrade and improve existing digital forensic kiosk technology

The new kit will be underpinned by three supporting activities for forces:

• Improved digital infrastructure (for example boosted broadband)
• Quality assurance meaning tools and kit are centrally validated
• Implementation, co-ordination and management support

The new project will deliver the new tech and support in the current financial year and will use data and what the project learns during 2021/22 to inform future TF funding bids around similar activity.

“These developments are evidence of the truly transformational work FCN and TF are delivering on behalf of U.K policing and the public it supports,” said Andrew Barrie, KBR President, Government Solutions EMEA. “This is underpinned by genuine collaboration and partnership between KBR and our customer.” “We pride ourselves on bringing our wider government and cross-industry experiences, digital capability and highly dependable program management capabilities to provide solutions that have a real-world impact both today and into the future.”