Footwear evidence is increasingly playing a significant role in helping police investigators and forensic scientists to solve volume, serious and organised crimes. Forensic scientists can link crime scenes and suspects – as described in this article – by comparing footwear impressions and marks found at the scene with a potential suspect’s footwear. But timing is critical. Footwear changes over time; soles wear out and marks change. Criminals may dispose of their shoes. Without timely intelligence, a detainee held briefly in custody can be released before officers realise they are a suspect in other crimes.

TreadMatch is simple, powerful and fast

Improve detection rates and give your Force access to cutting-edge forensic intelligence and the National Footwear Database (NFD) with TreadMatch. TreadMatch gets you your footwear intel fast. It’s also cleaner, cheaper, more reliable and more secure than sending physical footwear prints to a lab.

TreadMatch helps you act on footwear intel quickly. With a detainee held in custody for a recordable offence, you scan the footwear then TreadMatch gets busy, helping you to narrow down the type of footwear, matching against crimes held in the NFD before creating an intelligence pack that is automatically sent to the most appropriate recipient. This could be a custody officer, OIC or a forensic unit. Action becomes possible, before the detainee is released.

TreadMatch and the National Footwear Database combines the following data to produce an intel report:

• Detainee – footwear scans, from scanner or photo-capture unit
• Arrest – data from the Custody Record Management System (RMS), for example Niche
• Crime – footwear data and matching crimes returned held in the NFD.

Next Steps

TreadMatch is simple to setup and use, is cost effective, and can integrate with the most popular RMS systems. We offer a complete solution including installation and support. We offer unrivalled end-to-end expertise on integration to the UK’s National Footwear Database (NFD).

You can also read more about our pioneering work in Forensic Intelligence and our related UK National Solutions. We’ve also undertaken our own research into how TreadMatch can be utilised in applications beyond the custody suite to increase detection rates at the crime scene.