Image analysis in crime: progress, problems and prospects

This paper considers the application of image analysis (IA) in crime. It starts by examining the nature of IA and surveying the enormous scope of crime and forensic science. Various threads have been running through the application of IA in crime for many years, but recently new possibilities, opportunities and urgencies have arisen, so the subject needs to enter a more serious and professional phase. Fortunately, progress in IA seems to be matching this need: this paper aims to give some hints (necessarily quite limited in number) on the directions that ought to be taken.