A Shift in Strategy: Why Law Enforcement Executives Must Prioritize Digital Forensics Now
Law enforcement leaders have always had to balance strategic priorities, from crime prevention and community engagement to apprehension and investigations. This delicate balancing act involves making difficult choices about where to allocate finite resources. Today, while these core priorities remain, the landscape of policing has been fundamentally reshaped by technology. The most significant challenge for modern leaders is not just balancing these priorities but recognizing that the digital realm is now a foundational component of all of them.
From a suspect’s smartphone and wearables to a victim’s social media account, and with cameras nearly everywhere, digital evidence such as photos and videos, contacts, text messages, GPS data, and internet search history is woven into the fabric of nearly every criminal investigation. The key to solving modern crimes and ensuring justice lies in an agency’s ability to effectively collect, analyze, and interpret this evidence. Yet, the process of prioritizing technology investments often struggles to keep pace with this reality. Law enforcement executives are faced with the difficult task of funding crucial tools for crime prevention and officer safety, such as license plate readers, body-worn cameras, drones, and real-time crime centers. These technologies are not only valuable but often essential for modern policing.
However, in this complex and multifaceted decision-making process, the critical need for a robust digital forensics capability is frequently relegated to a lower priority. The failure to prioritize digital forensics alongside these other essential tools isn’t a matter of making a wrong choice; it’s a failure to adapt the strategic balance to meet the demands of a new digital era. This imbalance is a direct threat to investigative effectiveness, case solvability, and the pursuit of justice.
The Current Reality: Where Agencies Are Investing and Why
Law enforcement leaders are faced with complex decisions. They must weigh a variety of factors, including budget constraints, community expectations, and prevailing crime trends, to decide where to invest. Often, these decisions are driven by a desire for a visible and immediate return on investment.
For example, an agency facing a surge in vehicle theft might prioritize automated license plate readers (LPRs) because they can provide real-time data to help track stolen cars. Another agency grappling with high-profile violent crime might invest in a real-time crime center that integrates multiple data sources to enable rapid response. These are logical, data-driven decisions that can show a clear, measurable impact on crime rates.
However, the thinking behind these investments often overlooks a crucial fact: the evidence needed to prosecute the crime and get a conviction is overwhelmingly digital. License plate readers might help locate a stolen vehicle, but a digital forensics examiner will be the one to extract contacts, location data, and crucial messages from the suspect’s phone that prove intent or a connection to a larger criminal enterprise. The two capabilities are not mutually exclusive; they are intertwined. The failure to invest in a robust digital forensics program means that while agencies may be getting better at identifying and apprehending suspects, they are weakening their ability to build a strong, prosecutable case.
Roadblocks to Prioritizing Digital Forensics
The reasons behind this lack of prioritization are a mix of practical challenges and strategic oversights.
First, budget constraints are a persistent and undeniable reality. Law enforcement agencies often operate with limited resources and must make tough choices. Unfortunately, digital forensics is often seen as a resource-intensive, back-end function rather than a frontline necessity. Executives might view it as an expensive, specialized service, with the costs of tools, software, training, and personnel seeming prohibitive when compared to other, more visible technologies.
Second, there is a misunderstanding of the true impact of digital forensics. Leaders may not fully grasp just how pervasive digital evidence is in modern crime. Studies have estimated that 90% or more of criminal investigations involve some form of digital evidence. From organized retail theft rings that use encrypted messaging apps to coordinate their activities to homicide cases where a suspect’s location data can be the key to a conviction, digital evidence is central to almost every investigation. Without a strong digital forensics capability, information can be lost, cases become harder to solve, and justice is delayed.
Finally, there’s an issue of perception and strategic priorities. Some leaders prioritize proactive, crime-prevention technologies over post-incident investigative capabilities. They may see a visible reduction in crime rates from a new technology as a more impactful outcome than the successful prosecution of a handful of complex cases. This mindset creates a significant imbalance. While preventing future crime is critical, ensuring justice for current victims is equally important, and often, the two are directly related. When criminals know that law enforcement has robust investigative capabilities, it can deter them from committing future crimes.
How Digital Forensics Is Happening Now
Most agencies today fall into one of two categories when it comes to digital forensics.
The first group has a basic, in-house digital forensics capacity. These agencies often have one or two officers who have received some training and use basic tools to handle simple extractions. While this is a step in the right direction, it often leads to a "button-pushing" approach. These technicians may be proficient with a specific tool but may lack a deep understanding of how it works or how to interpret complex data. This can lead to incomplete analysis, missed evidence, or even findings that are legally inadmissible. These individuals are often bogged down with routine tasks, preventing them from developing the deep expertise needed for complex cases.
The second group relies on outsourcing their digital forensics needs to an external lab, such as a regional task force, a state lab, or a private company. While this approach can provide access to advanced expertise and tools, it comes with significant drawbacks. Outsourcing creates delays, as devices must be transported and placed in another agency’s queue. It removes control over the investigative process and can limit the ability to get timely leads. In today’s world, where evidence on mobile devices can degrade or be permanently lost in a matter of hours, these delays can be fatal to an investigation.
Why Digital Forensics Must Be Prioritized NOW
The need for law enforcement executives to prioritize digital forensics is not a recommendation — it is an urgent necessity. The consequences of not doing so are becoming increasingly severe.
Evidence is becoming more volatile and complex. Modern mobile devices are designed with robust security features that actively work against traditional investigative methods. Features
like auto-reboot, USB restricted mode, and “dead-man switches” can permanently erase or lock
down data if a device is not processed immediately. Delaying the acquisition of a mobile device, even for a few hours, can result in the permanent loss of crucial evidence, from call logs to location data. The traditional method of placing a phone in a Faraday bag and sending it to a lab
a week later is no longer sufficient.
Criminals are leveraging technology to their advantage. From sophisticated online fraud
schemes to narcotics traffickers using encrypted messaging, criminals are exploiting digital
platforms to operate with a degree of anonymity and speed that was previously impossible. Law
enforcement agencies that lack the ability to effectively analyze this digital data are essentially
fighting a modern war with outdated tools.
The backlog is a crisis in the making. Digital forensics labs are facing a massive and ever-increasing backlog of devices and data. Without a clear strategy to address this, the backlog will only grow, leading to longer processing times, delayed investigations, and a justice system that can’t keep up. Agencies must create efficient, and sometimes automated, workflows that balance the skills of highly trained digital forensic examiners (DFEs) with the efficiency of digital evidence technicians (DETs). This tiered approach can help identify quick leads for investigators while freeing up experts to focus on the most complex cases.
Legal expectations are rising. Courts and defense attorneys expect law enforcement to provide accurate and legally sound digital evidence. Failure to retrieve, analyze, and present digital data properly can compromise prosecutions, lead to dismissed charges, and erode public trust.
Justice is being denied. At its core, the lack of a robust digital forensics capability means that victims are not getting justice. Whether it’s a child exploitation case where the perpetrator is using the dark web or a violent crime where the victim’s last communications are on their phone, the inability to extract and analyze this data means cases are harder to solve, and criminals remain on the street. The cost of not solving a crime or not finding a victim is immeasurable.
Building a Digital Forensics Program: A Realistic Approach
Building a comprehensive digital forensics program doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing proposition. Law enforcement executives can take a staged, strategic approach to build this essential capability.
Start with the basics. Identify the agency’s most pressing needs. Do many cases involve mobile devices? Do investigators need immediate access to social media or open-source intelligence (OSINT)? Start with the tools and training that address the most common crime types. This can be as simple as investing in one mobile forensics tool and sending one or two personnel for foundational training.
Define and delineate roles. Don’t try to make every analyst a full-fledged expert on everything. Create a clear division of labor, perhaps with a tiered approach. Digital evidence technicians can handle the initial intake, imaging, and triage of devices, identifying immediate leads for investigators. This frees up the highly trained digital forensics examiners to focus on the deep-dive analysis, complex data reconstruction, and courtroom testimony that only an expert can provide.
Explore grant opportunities and partnerships. Building a digital forensics program is a significant investment, but there are numerous funding opportunities available. Federal, state, and private grants can help offset the cost of tools, software, and training. Additionally, leaders can explore partnerships with neighboring agencies to share resources and reduce the financial burden on any single department.
Embrace ongoing training. The digital landscape is constantly changing, with new devices, operating systems, and apps emerging every day. A digital forensics program cannot be a one-time investment. Executives must commit to continuous training and professional development to ensure their personnel and tools remain current and effective.
The time for law enforcement leaders to make digital forensics a top priority is now. The evidence is clear: the future of policing and criminal investigation is digital. By making a strategic and realistic investment in this critical field, agencies can ensure that they are not just reacting to crime but are equipped to solve it in the 21st century.