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B.
Reconstruction
The commission of a crime involves the interaction of numerous objects,
including at least one person, the criminal. Up to this point in constructing
the principles of criminalistics, we have been concerned with the relationship
of three objects, the evidence, the source of the evidence, and the target on
which the evidence is found. We now consider the relationship of multiple
objects that may contact each other during commission of a crime. With this
concept, we arrive at the final process in a criminalistics examination, that
of 
reconstruction
.
1.
The State of the Practice
Very little formal literature has been written about reconstruction as an
autonomous process. Almost no scientific research has been performed, and
no universal principles have been articulated. Further, the age of specializa-
tion in criminalistics has decreased the number of criminalists that are both
competent and willing to undertake a true reconstruction. The state of the
practice today is such that this area is the least-understood procedure in
forensic science.
Perhaps because of this continually diminishing field of qualified scien-
tists, nonscientific professionals, such as detectives, attorneys, and profilers,
have eagerly stepped in to fill the perceived void. Although properly trained
and educated profilers can clearly make a valuable contribution to the psy-
chological aspects of a reconstruction, they are ill-equipped to appreciate and
integrate the result of physical evidence examinations. We provide an example
below of at least one behavioral analyst who has superseded the limits of his
expertise. Similarly, attorneys and detectives should not be put in the position
of intepreting scientific evidence. We suggest that it would be appropriate for
criminalists to provide a reconstruction to one of the professionals described
above, in the same way that they would provide the results of an analysis of
source determination. Each would then have that information to assist in,
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Principles and Practice of Criminalistics
variously, investigating the case, prosecuting the case, or establishing a moti-
vation or psychological profile for the perpetrator.
Two major subcategories of reconstruction exist, almost certainly because
of the frequency with which they are encountered, bloodstain pattern inter-
pretation and shooting reconstruction. A body of literature and research does
exist regarding the dynamics of both blood spatter (Eckert and James, 1989;
Bevel et al., 1997), the ballistics of bullets (Garrison, 1993, 
AFTE
Journal
*),
and how they might pertain to a crime scene reconstruction. However, there
is a dearth (although not a complete absence; Chisum, 1991) of material
detailing general principles and guidelines of reconstruction.** We attempt
here to at least categorize the current state of the practice of reconstruction,
as it exists in the literature and in practice.