Time spent assessing latents

[charlton97]

Colleagues,

I want to couch some general opinion on what length of time examiners spend assessing latents. I feel of course it depends on the material...obviously. But given an average year and an average set of evidential material I wonder on average how long we all spend looking at latents when comparing with an exemplar. I would guess that most of us would spend maybe a matter of a few minutes generally speaking before making a decision. Clearly difficult material would take much longer but that is not my question....I am looking at averages.

So, would anyone advance me on say 3 to 5 minutes per examination given average QQ curvature??

[Dan]

I think 1-2 minutes would be closer to the time I spend on comparisons if speaking only of the "center cut" of latents and exemplars.

[g.]

Interesting question and should spark some discussion!, but I am not sure if it can be answered this way.

1) I don't think the mean will be a meaningful statistic. It is doubtful this will be even close to a normal distribution. Plus this mean without the variance is a weak, perhaps even misleading, statistic.

Not knowing the purpose of your question, (perhaps you are looking for a citation or some corroboration to a comment or statement you wish to make in a scientific article), this may require more investigation.

2) The appropriate way to address this may be to get average ranges (mins, max, and perhaps median) OR to get an average range of times PER the Q&Q of the latent (which of course we can't objectively measure, but may be able to subjectively rate or place on a subjective, personal scale. e.g. I spend 3-5 min on average for an dead easy fully rolled print, 5-10 minutes for an easy latent, 10-15 for a medium and 20-30 for a hard and 30-60 on average for very difficult prints....keeping in mind the above are just average ranges (and not necessarily mine, so don't quote those, Mr or Ms Minneapolis Public Defender.....)

What do you think?

g.

[sharon cook]

Do you mean evaluating a given latent print, or doing a COMPARISON? Either way, please don't give ASCLD another statistic to make us keep!!!