Crime today is at an extreme high. That, however, is where forensic science comes in. Forensic science has been there to help solve every crime committed. Science is the technology used to help forensic teams to analyze and solve crimes. What can look obvious to the naked eye could actually be a whole other story. Evidence can range from hair samples, to DNA, to blood, to finger prints, and many more. Over the years, forensic science has helped change law enforcement.
The many different disciplines that make up forensic science have been embedded in popular culture since their inception. Long before criminal investigations incorporated the use of fingerprints, document examination, blood spatter pattern analysis, gunshot trajectories, accident …show more content…
Watson, applied the scientific method and stellar detective work to solve crimes and thereby introduced these concepts to the masses. Broadly speaking, this is the definition of forensic science: applying science and technology to legal investigations, whether civil or criminal. From the “medicolegal” examination of a human body postmortem (after death) to analyzing the breath of a driver who had a few too many drinks, the reconstruction of how the Twin Towers collapsed, and the identification of unknown soldiers and civilians in battlefields in mass graves, these practices have now long been integrated into Westernized contemporary court and justice systems. Yet, it was only in recent decades that the abilities of forensic scientists have vastly expanded due to a renaissance of scientific breakthroughs. The purpose of this research paper is to give an overview of the primary areas of forensic science and to review the breakthroughs and controversies within each of its disciplines. Secondarily, this research paper provides an introduction into how the courts screen expert witnesses and concludes with a summary of important recent developments in forensic …show more content…
Forensic anthropology, a specialization within physical anthropology, has particular import when the typical means of identification are destroyed, decomposed, or otherwise damaged. The determination of age, race/ancestry, sex, and living height/stature can be assessed by the advanced anthropometric methods available in the discipline to aid investigators by providing an ante mortem (before death) profile of the unknown individual. These methods are based on the forensic skeletal collections of leading anthropologists around the world, particularly in the United States (Housley & Jantz, 1998). The skeletons in these collections have been meticulously measured and documented, and have been programmed into specialized computer statistical packages that give forensic anthropologists the ability to estimate most individuals’ living profile with reasonable statistical confidence. As more contemporary skeletons are contributed to this data bank, and particularly as these collections become more diverse in their sampling, the statistical confidence of these practitioners will be
The many different disciplines that make up forensic science have been embedded in popular culture since their inception. Long before criminal investigations incorporated the use of fingerprints, document examination, blood spatter pattern analysis, gunshot trajectories, accident …show more content…
Watson, applied the scientific method and stellar detective work to solve crimes and thereby introduced these concepts to the masses. Broadly speaking, this is the definition of forensic science: applying science and technology to legal investigations, whether civil or criminal. From the “medicolegal” examination of a human body postmortem (after death) to analyzing the breath of a driver who had a few too many drinks, the reconstruction of how the Twin Towers collapsed, and the identification of unknown soldiers and civilians in battlefields in mass graves, these practices have now long been integrated into Westernized contemporary court and justice systems. Yet, it was only in recent decades that the abilities of forensic scientists have vastly expanded due to a renaissance of scientific breakthroughs. The purpose of this research paper is to give an overview of the primary areas of forensic science and to review the breakthroughs and controversies within each of its disciplines. Secondarily, this research paper provides an introduction into how the courts screen expert witnesses and concludes with a summary of important recent developments in forensic …show more content…
Forensic anthropology, a specialization within physical anthropology, has particular import when the typical means of identification are destroyed, decomposed, or otherwise damaged. The determination of age, race/ancestry, sex, and living height/stature can be assessed by the advanced anthropometric methods available in the discipline to aid investigators by providing an ante mortem (before death) profile of the unknown individual. These methods are based on the forensic skeletal collections of leading anthropologists around the world, particularly in the United States (Housley & Jantz, 1998). The skeletons in these collections have been meticulously measured and documented, and have been programmed into specialized computer statistical packages that give forensic anthropologists the ability to estimate most individuals’ living profile with reasonable statistical confidence. As more contemporary skeletons are contributed to this data bank, and particularly as these collections become more diverse in their sampling, the statistical confidence of these practitioners will be