How to Fix Forensic Science: NAS Recommendations 6, 7, 8, and 9

This week I am going to be talking about some issues that are inextricably linked so I will be addressing them as a whole. The recommendations in the report from the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) titled “Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward” corresponding to these issues are recommendations 6, 7, 8, and 9.

These recommendations address the issues of crime lab accreditation, certification of forensic scientists who perform forensic examinations, setting quality controls for crime labs to ensure accuracy and reliability, and setting a national code of ethics for forensic scientists. This may sound like a dry topic, but I assure you it is not.

For reference purposes, the recommendations are:

• Recommendation 6: Establish guidelines for accreditation and certification of laboratories and practitioners.
• Recommendation 7: Make accreditation of laboratories and certification of practitioners mandatory.
• Recommendation 8: Labs should establish routine QA and QC measures to ensure accuracy and reliability.
• Recommendation 9: Establish a national code of ethics for forensic scientists.

Sounds simple enough, but if these things can be accomplished correctly, they could solve a lot of the issues in forensic science.

As I have mentioned in almost all of my earlier posts on the NAS report, most of the ills of forensic science can be cured through appropriate training, continuing education, accreditation, certification, transparency, and oversight. There are several organizations who believe that they have accomplished much of this work already, such as the American Society of Crime Lab Directors (ASCLD) and their crime lab accrediting body, ASCLD/LAB, which established a voluntary laboratory accreditation program in the early 1980s which has steadily grown to include more than 350 crime labs to date. Individual professional societies for some fields of forensic science have voluntary certification processes for their fields.

Unfortunately, instead of creating systems and organizations that would show the world that the field of forensic science in the United States is respectable at this time when our science and our values are being called into question, what the most high-profile leaders of my beloved profession have succeeded in demonstrating quite clearly is that they either do not believe in the very values and regulatory systems they claim to be effective or they feel that those systems simply do not apply to them.

I have friends and colleagues who know of the failings of these people, and who do not approve of it, but who sometimes chalk it up to “that’s just how they did things for a long time”, as if that excuses it. That type of behavior sends innocent people to prison while criminals are left free to continue to walk among us. 

Those who are working so hard to obscure the activities of their organizations and prevent real transparency and oversight are the ones responsible for letting things get to the point that Congress commissioned the NAS Committee in the first place.

There are a thousand miles and at least that many people between an arrest and the electric chair. If any one of those people is negligent, incompetent, or corrupt in any way something has to be done to make it right.

You can’t keep looking the other way because it’s the easy thing to do or because you think someone is nice even though their work is sloppy or even because you fear retaliation or being ostracized. What you allow, you endorse. And this has to stop.

This issue has the attention of people in Congress who can do something about it and there are ways to make your voice heard and your experiences known without endangering yourself or your career.

Over the next few days I am going to detail why the current system of self-policing is not working or acceptable in the forensic community. I’ll also put forth some ideas for a system of true checks and balances for the forensic community.

I will also be discussing the Draft Legislation that was released on May 5, 2010, including where it came from and how it plays into some truly disturbing developments with leaders in the forensic science community.

See all NAS posts.