Bypass, Covert Entry, and Forced Entry Indicators
Domain 5 tests whether you can distinguish covert entry, bypass, and forced entry from ordinary wear, and whether you can support that distinction with physical indicators rather than assumption.
Categories and indicators
- Bypass defeats the locking point without manipulating the cylinder: shimming a latch, slipping a spring latch, under-door tools, removing hinges, or exploiting a gap. Look for latch wear, frame flex marks, and fresh rubbing on the strike.
- Covert cylinder entry includes picking, raking, bumping, impressioning, and decoding. Indicators may include fresh keyway scratches, pin-tip polishing, plug-face marks, bumped pin damage, or a cylinder that turns too freely. These are often subtle and can mimic wear.
- Forced entry includes prying, kicking, drilling, and wrenching. Look for bent strikes, split jambs, paint fractures, distorted bolts, drill swarf, and crushed cylinder edges.
- Attempt versus success: a bent tool, fresh marks with no entry, or a latch that remains extended can indicate an attempt.
Worked example
A door shows a shiny arc on the latch bolt and a matching mark on the strike lip, with no cylinder damage and no jamb pry marks. The door closes and latches normally. The pattern is more consistent with repeated latch contact or a shim or slip attempt than with cylinder picking. Your report lists the possible mechanisms and explains why cylinder manipulation is not supported.
Traps
- Treating one scratch as proof of picking.
- Ignoring maintenance, painting, or hinge adjustment as causes of marks.
- Confusing a bypass, where the latch is slipped, with cylinder entry, where the lock is picked.
- Missing the difference between an attempt and a completed entry.
- Failing to photograph the door gap, strike, and latch together.