Another Call to Make Crime Labs Independent

Excellent arti­cle echo­ing a com­mon theme here on Forensic Science News. Take the labs out of the police/prosecutors’ offices. Make them inde­pen­dent. Just like what the NAS report said.

Problems with crime labs fol­low a depress­ing pat­tern: a tech­ni­cian makes mis­takes or delib­er­ately fudges data. When the errors are even­tu­ally dis­cov­ered, the police and prosecutor

[Continue Reading Another Call to Make Crime Labs Independent…]

Scathing Article About Houston PD Crime Lab

A recent Houston Chronicle edi­to­r­ial blasts the Houston Crime Laboratory. The arti­cle starts off by stating:

On tele­vi­sion, on the police drama CSI (for Crime Scene Investigation), the bril­liant, ded­i­cated com­pletely pro­fes­sional staff of the Las Vegas Police Department solves every crime that comes into its hands through flaw­less foren­sic sci­ence and with iron­clad integrity each

[Continue Reading Scathing Article About Houston PD Crime Lab…]

Cops Fight to Keep Control of Crime Lab

Even after the report by the National Academy of Sciences rec­om­mend­ing that foren­sic labs be inde­pen­dent of police and prosecutor’s offices, those groups still fight to give not give up con­trol (and thereby influ­ence the results of foren­sic analy­sis) of crime labs.

D.C.‘s top foren­sic sci­en­tist has been trans­ferred out of the police depart­ment amid an increas­ingly bitter

[Continue Reading Cops Fight to Keep Control of Crime Lab…]

Institutional Bias Examined

Recently the NAS report described how insti­tu­tional bias should be avoided by hav­ing crime labs removed from police/prosecutor’s agen­cies. The arti­cle quoted below ran in PoliceOne.com, and talks about how police offi­cers can con­tribute to bias in foren­sic examination.

A police offi­cer rushes up to the fin­ger­print exam­iner and pleads for help.

The sus­pect sit­ting in the interrogation

[Continue Reading Institutional Bias Examined…]

Houston Chronicle on the Houston PD Crime Lab

The Houston Chronicle pub­lished a op-ed over the week­end, call­ing for change in their police crime lab. Even going as far as sug­gest­ing it’s time to close it down, and open up a regional crime lab that works with, but is inde­pen­dent of law enforce­ment agencies.

According to the audit, HPD work­ers often over­looked prints or

[Continue Reading Houston Chronicle on the Houston PD Crime Lab…]