There is a widespread problem with looting and vandalism of cultural resources in the Pacific Northwest. To combat this problem law enforcement must have the assistance of the archaeological community. To be able to assist law enforcement, archaeologists and cultural resource specialists must have the proper training in cultural resource law and crime prevention.
The focus of this study is to investigate the preparedness of archaeologists and cultural resource specialists within the federal government, specifically the United State Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management, to assist in the investigation and prevention of cultural resource crime. To answer this question a survey was sent out to all of the aforementioned subjects within the Pacific Northwest. This survey asked for data concerning types of cultural resources affected by crime, prevention methods, training, opinions on quality of training, and demographic information. The respondent was also asked to reply to various fictitious scenarios concerning cultural resource crime, and the answers compared to a control group made up of law enforcement personnel.
Information obtained from this survey showed that there is a lack of training among both of these agencies. A large percentage of the respondents feel that their training was either nonexistent or was lacking in depth and quality. The ability of the subject group to make decisions concerning the fictitious scenarios was closely analogous to those made by the law enforcement group. However, from information obtained from the respondents and from analysis of other data these scenarios may not have been a good indicator of the preparedness of the subject group.
To improve their abilities at preventing and assisting in the investigation of cultural resource crimes, all archaeologists and cultural resource specialists need to have the opportunity to have access to quality training. These persons must also take it upon themselves to protect the resource using methods that are allowed by their respective agencies. / Graduation date: 1994
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ORGSU/oai:ir.library.oregonstate.edu:1957/35941 |
| Date | 26 April 1994 |
| Creators | Schmidt, Chester Allan |
| Contributors | Brauner, David R. |
| Source Sets | Oregon State University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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