Day One of Being Olivia Benson

Today was day one at the Crime Lab. And of course, like every good Law&Order SVU fan, I was channeling my inner Olivia Benson. Now, this is not an SVU unit, but they do work with some... less than appealing evidence. Sexual assault via internet and smartphone, child pornography, potential rape... I got to read the files, review the cases and then talk about them to someone very high up in the chain of command.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start with the beginning of the day. Anyone who knows me knows that I am rather scared of trains... if I am on them alone. And my commute... well, it requires 3 trains. Two commuter rails and the T. It's about a 2 hour commute. Surprisingly, it's not that bad. I can use that time to study in my GRE book. So, it's really not all that bad. Although the guys at the station seem to think it was pretty bad. I don't really think so because most of the time I'm just sitting still and waiting most of the time. And it gave me time to calm my nerves about being on a train. Because like i've said, trains are scary.

Now, the first thing I did was meet everyone and explore the building. I met the dispatchers, the detectives, the secretaries... I saw the cells, where people get booked and where evidence is kept (I also saw the largest evidence bag that i have ever seen... it was half my height!). But overall, it was pretty simple.

The next part of the day was going to a computer forensics lab. In this lab, I got to help with a phone dump. A phone dump is when a phone in evidence is given to the Forensics unit, and they take all the information off of it using some pretty cool software and then all the information is put onto the computer. Something very important I learned is that if you delete something, the file is still there. They can still get the file with this software and you don't even know it. ESPECIALLY with I-phones. We dumped an I-phone and I swear to god you knew everything in about 15 minutes. Locations, pictures and videos that had been deleted etc. You need to be really careful about what you text, what you take pictures of, and what the settings are on your phone. If the NSA scandal didn't scare you, this will. The police can get anything they want off your phone in less than an hour. Whether or not you have deleted it in the past. Of course they need a warrant, but if you've done something wrong, it's really not that hard to get one. So be careful about what you put on your phone.

Now that i've given you that obvious little piece of advice, you should know that working with detectives and within a crime unit isn't... always fun like you see on the TV shows. Every day isn't fast paced criminal catching, in fact, it's a lot of paper work and writing affidavits and just bumming around waiting for things to happen. Now, some days you're on your feet constantly, doing everything, meeting everyone, doing whatever you can to be a help to the detectives and officers.

I'm very excited and happy to be working here and getting all this new experience. Over the summer, I will get to ride in a patrol car (and hopefully get to turn on the sirens), sit in on an interrogation, go on a stakeout and meet a DA. Lots of things to do, and so little time to do it! But hey. it's gonna be cool.