Book Review: Casey, E. (2004). Digital Evidence and Computer Crime: Forensics Science, Computers and the Internet (2nd ed.). Amsterdam: Elsevier Academic Press. 690 pp

• DOI: 10.1177/0734016807304840
• Published date: 01 September 2007
• Date: 01 September 2007
• Subject Matter: Articles

As the authors take you into the history and development of the BSU and the FBI special

agents who worked there, you begin to develop an appreciation for the exemplary characters

of these special tenants. This was not an ordinary group of investigators; this was an extra-

ordinary unit composed of unusual individuals with the special skills expected of an FBI

special agent, but with a different view of how to do their jobs. These agents looked at the

unusual crimes they investigated from a different perspective. They brought the sciences of

psychiatry and psychology and the study of mental health into the FBI and blended them

into a law enforcement tool. Through their efforts and vision, they changed the FBI and

state and local law enforcement with the innovative training programs they established and

taught in the FBI Academy.

The authors use some of the most interesting and challenging cases the BSU was

involved in to display the individual personalities of the special agents in the unit and how

they worked together to help other law enforcement agencies. These chapters are among

the most interesting as the authors describe the growth of the unit as it investigates crime and

how its successes lead to more challenges for the BSU agents within an FBI bureaucracy

that was not always in total agreement with the freethinking style of investigation. The

authors know that to understand the BSU and its accomplishments, you have to learn about

the individuals associated with the unit from the beginning and throughout the unit’s history.

They provide this information in great detail by associating the individuals with the cases

they investigated and the breakthroughs they made in investigative techniques. The infor-

mation provided by the authors on the investigations is detailed and transports you into the

discussions and disagreements that were part of the interaction between the BSU agents

while they worked. The details of the relationships that existed between the BSU agents and

how these interactions supported or obstructed their investigations, depending on which

agent’s point of view were presented, help to understand why they were so successful.

The authors also provide an interesting look at the programs the BSU helped to create

and instruct in, which help officers to survive the stressful environment of law enforcement.

The development of these programs was not any easier than anything else they tackled, but

they persevered because they knew the changes were needed in the FBI and other law

enforcement agencies.

This book is for anyone who enjoys history, or more specifically, a history about special

people who believed in what they were doing and by continuing to work to make things

better they affected all law enforcement and the community. This is not just another book

about the FBI, but it is a book about special people in the FBI’s BSU.

Richard H. Hill

University of Houston Downtown

Casey, E. (2004). Digital Evidence and Computer Crime: Forensics

Science, Computers and the Internet (2nd ed.). Amsterdam: Elsevier

Academic Press. 690 pp.

DOI: 10.1177/0734016807304840

Eoghan Casey’s Digital Evidence and Computer Crime is, in the opinion of this reviewer,

the single most comprehensive and useful professional reference—or graduate-level

280 Criminal Justice Review