From the Lab Bench to the Courtroom

Popular television shows like "CSI," "NCIS," and "Law and Order," have showcased the role that forensic science can play in helping law enforcement carry out investigations and convict criminals. However, these shows can also create the misimpression that all courtroom evidence that is presented as scientific evidence has been subjected to high-tech, foolproof analysis and that every state and local crime lab around the country has easy access to these sophisticated lab technologies. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. A National Academies report issued 4 years ago raised serious concerns about the state of forensic science and, among other things, called for structural reforms in new research. The techniques used in some forensic disciplines, such as ballistics, bite mark, fingerprint analysis, et cetera, have not been subject to the rigorous scientific scrutiny that is applied to DNA matching. While the forensic science community did not embrace all of the report's reform recommendations, there seems to be general agreement that law enforcement, prosecutors, and crime labs would benefit from greater research and training efforts to increase crime lab capacity and accuracy and to strengthen the scientific foundations of forensic science.