Minister of Community and Social Development, Manohar Ramsaran formally opened the Trinidad and Tobago Institute of Forensic Services on June 5. It is located at the corner of John and Henry Street, Montrose, Chaguanas.

Founder and chairman of the institute, Louis D. Andrews began his lifelong interest in the art of scientific crime detection some 38 years ago. Andrews remembers that a coupon in the Trinidad Guardian sparked his foray into the world of forensic sciences, at age 14.

This coupon was the ticket to his entrance into a fascinating area of study for him, as he gained not only the Blue Book of Crime, but would later go on to study at the Institute of Applied Sciences in Chicago, Illinois.

The Blue Book opened his eyes to the many areas involved in the scientific investigation of crime: fingerprinting, photography, identification f firearms, handwriting and typewriting, and civil and criminal investigation.

His enthusiasm for the art of fingerprinting was so great that he immediately began to practise on his classmates, dusting their prints and figuring out which of them had touched various items, in what he compared to a "Mandrake" scenario.

In 1966, Andrews began his successful career in crime detection with the police service. His initial break-through occurred two years later when he solved a murder using fingerprint identification. The fingerprints of the accused, he said, were the only evidence linking him to the scene.

Using scientific methods, he pointed out, may link the accused to the victim and to the weapon and connect all three to the crime scene. Since then, Andrews has been called upon for his expert testimony in successive murder trials.

Andrews' career in scientific crime detection has been bolstered by the nine scholarships he has been awarded by the police service. This has entitled him to study Scientific and Technical Aids at the constabulary in Durham, England as well as attend the world's first Forensic Science Symposium on Personal Identification. Since then he has initiated a Forensic Sciences course in the police service.

He describes his venture into the business world as a "bold initiative". He was prompted to do so, he said, because for too long there has been a lack of knowledge to identify trace materials, transient evidence and inceptive evidence at crime scenes.

The untrained eye, Andrews noted, is unable to piece together the microscopic bits of evidence at a crime scene. "Investigators have to know what to look for," he emphasized.

Andrews has taken the bull by the horns and now offers training in scientific crime detection techniques at the Institute of Forensic Services. At present he also lectures at the UWI School of Continuing Studies, sharing his knowledge in Aspects of Forensic Science.

He strongly believes that as law enforcement is carried over into the millennium, there must be a revolutionary change in the methods used. Forensic science, he said, is the support system to this revolutionary change. It affords the reality of crime being solved much more easily and accurately.

Andrews said that while he is unaware of the rate at which officers are trained or how their training is currently utilized, he knows that Commissioner of Police Hilton Guy is aware of this transformation to scientific approaches. He is confident that the Commissioner will take up the baton of scientific crime detection.

The Institute's services are also targeted at helping the business sector fight white-collar crime. Andrews intends to penetrate the banking system, training bank employees in the art of identification of the authenticity of documents such as wills, deeds and withdrawal slips.

Too often, old people, unable to read, and authenticating documents with their thumbprints, are robbed of their savings because of the absence of knowledge to properly identify fingerprints.

The methods of forensic science will be especially beneficial to insurance companies in discerning genuine from fraudulent claims. If a man shoots a pane of glass, he said, the investigator must have the knowledge to determine which side of the window the bullet entered. Arson and economic crimes, he said, will be much easier to prove or disprove once scientific techniques are utilized.

Andrews intends to expand his boundaries, crusading though the Caribbean with the services and products of the Institute in his battle against crime through the methods of forensic science.

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