Professional Standards Flashcards
What training do you receive that qualifies you to examine fingerprints?
To be deemed qualified, all fingerprint officers must complete a five-year training period, which combines on-the-job training, with written and practical assessments.
These assessments include written exams, as well as practical exams which test our ability to examine scenes and exhibits in the fingerprint lab - to progress through the training, these assessments must be passed.
Who assesses your work?
I am assessed by qualified fingerprint officers in my own office, as well as the National Fingerprint Training Officer who is based at the New Zealand Police College.
Do you adhere to professional standards?
We adhere to professional standards, including standard operating procedures written by the fingerprint management group.
We also follow recommendations by the Organization of Scientific Area Committees for Forensic Science (OSAC, based in the US) and the Home Office (based in the UK) - communities of scientists and experts who develop science-based standards for forensic science.
Have you aware of the NAS/PCAST report; if so, can you tell us the recommendations of this report?
The PCAST report (and similar), was a report which investigated the validity of the forensic sciences.
This report made a set of recommendations, which have since helped to shape our best practice today. Importantly, this report found that fingerprint identification is a fundamentally valid science.
One of these recommendations was the calculation of an error rate for fingerprint identification.
Is your work peer reviewed?
The research that guides our training and practice is all peer reviewed prior to publication.
Also, by verifying all fingerprint identifications, we are essentially peer reviewing all identifications before they are disclosed, and so the peer review process is an integral part of fingerprint identification.
