Today I attended a day of study organized in Trieste, Italy, about investigative techniques, named “Giornata di Studio: Tecniche di Indagine” (the only link I found is here). Although it was mainly directed to local police, I think it was pretty interesting for al the people working in the field (and probably also for normal but curious people). The first speaker was Franco Morizio (head of the local police of Bergamo). The second was Luciano Garofano, which in Italy is very well known, being the head of the RIS of Parma, probably the most popular Italian scientific investigation institute, which is under the force Carabinieri (subject also of a quite popular CSI-like fiction).
I think I was (except for the journalists) one of the few people not belonging to a Force, and, although the main theme of the day was how to preserve the crime scene before the arrival of the specialists, some hints about necessary rules every policeman should know about investigations have been given. Real tools and scientific techniques and results have been depicted in a very interesting manner, but probably the most interesting part of the day was the short explanation about how some of the most popular cases in in Italy have been solved by scientific means. And everything was made very interesting by the charisma of both the two speakers!