Forensic Science Flashcards
Forensic Science
Application of science to law
CSI Effect
When court system has false expectations of what can and cannot be expected from the crime lab
National Academy of sciences 13 Recommendation
Strengthening Forensic Science in the US
- The National Institute of Forensic Science (NIFS) - independent body
- NIFS develop standard terminology
- Accuracy, reliability and validity
- $$ - make all public forensic laboratories independent of law enforcement and prosecutors
offices - research on human error and bias
- NIFS work with Nat. Inst. Standards and Tech. - to advance measurement, validation, reliability,
information sharing and proficiency testing, protocols - All FS labs must be accredited and all FS must be certified professionally
- All labs – routine quality assurance and quality control in place
- NIFS – national code of ethics
- $$ - educational establishments for graduate programs and scholarships
- Eliminate all Coroner’s system, replacing with Medical Examiner systems
- $$ to develop nationwide fingerprint interoperability
- $$ to NIFS, FBI and CDC to prepare scientists for events related to Homeland Security
Forensic scientists
Civilian workers who do not attend crime scenes
Crime scene investigators
Specifically trained RCMP officers (Ident) who attend the crime scene and collect evidence
3 Canadian RCMP crime labs
Vancouver, Edmonton, Ottawa
3 Independent Forensic labs
Centre of Forensic Sciences (Toronto), Sault Ste. Marie (Ontario), and Laboratoire de sciences judiciaires et de medicine legale (Montreal)
Case receipt unit
Where piece of evidence goes to be tagged with a code to be tracked
Evidence recovery unit
Exhibit is examined for forensically significant trace evidence, collected, and sent to the appropriate unit.
Can perform basic tests if it is a specific substance
Forensic Biology unit
Deals with bodily fluids
Forensic Toxicology
Quantifies and identifies toxins, drugs, alcohol
Trace evidence unit (Forensic Chemistry)
Analyze non-biological trace evidence
Firearms/tool marks unit
Compare and match tools/firearms
Questioned documents unit
Analyze handwriting on printed materials to determine their source
IAFIS
Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System
Maintained by FBI
