The World of Forensics

Published Spring 2005 in UMM Magazine

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There’s been a continual growth of forensic science in the public eye.  Today it’s CSI and its spin-offs; in the 1970’s it was the show Quincy.  But forensics and popular fiction have been in style even back into the late 1800’s, when Sherlock Holmes solved crimes using the smallest of clues, apparent to anyone who was able to read them.

 But what is forensic science?  Simply put, it is the finding of physical clues that relate to the crime and learning how they come into play.  Unlike witness testimony and observations, physical or hard evidence that doesn’t change its mind, it doesn’t lie.  It simply is.

 Shortly after the years of Sherlock Holmes, a real-life criminologist named Locard developed a theory that every time something or someone comes into contact with another object, something is either left or taken away, no matter how small. 

 The main problem is finding it, and then interpreting it once it’s been found.

 This task falls to the forensic investigators.  These forensic scientists look for both the large and small clues at a scene.  To do this, the scene needs to be preserved from the start for the investigators to be able to do their job.  The first police on the scene have the responsibility to make sure the scene is protected from disturbance.  This isn’t always possible, since some victims require medical attention, or there is some other danger on the scene.  The admissibility of the evidence can be made or broken depending on the reliability of the evidence...