Forensic experts meet for crime conference

Forensic experts and senior police officers from around the world are gathering in Dublin today for a conference on tackling serious crime.

Around 150 officers and crime specialists from law enforcement agencies and universities will spend the day discussing new policing methods. Assistant Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan will open the conference.

Delegates from the UK, the Netherlands, USA, Germany and Ireland will discuss criminal geographic profiling, computerised behavioural analysis, forensic psychology and offences against children.

The conference, Investigative Forensic Psychology, held at Clontarf Castle is part funded by the European Union and the Department of Justice.

Specialist detectives will also hold seminars on investigative interviewing techniques and international experience of forensic psychology in the analysis of serious crime.

Newly adopted serious crime analysis systems will also be debated. The National Bureau of Criminal Investigation recently acquired the ViCLAS computer network in a bid to improve these techniques.