forensic focus - Editor's Letter: Demanding Respect for Forensic Science

Fulfilling the Promise of DNA Technology
President’s DNA Initiative Brings Hope of Crime Lab Funding, Backlog Resolution
By Kelly M. Pyrek

Crime Lab Design is in the Details
By Kelly M. Pyrek

Forensic Photography:
The Pros and Cons of Going Digital
By John Roark

EDITOR’S LETTER
Demanding Respect for Forensic Science

PERSPECTIVES
Field Needs Adequate Funding, National Forensic Science Commission

SPECIAL SECTION
Advances in DNA

NEWS & VIEWS
Industry News Briefs, Off the Bookshelf, Notes from the Field

Demanding Respect for Forensic Science

You are reading the premiere issue of forensic focus magazine, a new publication designed to help unite the various disciplines of forensic science with the criminal justice community. We’re here to present the latest news and information affecting the fields, as well as publish expert-written articles expounding on topics that help forensic scientists, crime lab personnel, criminalists, investigators, law enforcement and prosecutors do their jobs more efficiently.

This publication has an interesting genealogy. In 2001 we launched forensic nurse magazine to educate and champion a small group of your colleagues, forensic nurses, who deal with medicolegal issues as they encounter and care for living forensic patients. forensic nurse was created to document, validate and support this growing and meaningful nursing specialty — especially as it makes significant contributions to the collection, documentation and preservation of evidence. In 2003 we produced our first very successful forensic conference, Forensic Focus — which was an extension of the educational platform established by forensic nurse. Because forensic nurse generated such strong attention from the rest of the forensic community, the need to spin off a separate publication for the forensic nurse’s counterparts became apparent. The fact that this magazine is named after the educational conferences articulates our editorial vision — to facilitate the sharing of knowledge across forensic disciplines, to call for the continued education of the next crop of scientists, investigators and prosecutors, and to champion important budgetary and legislative issues that impact the future of forensic science and criminal justice.

I’ve heard it said that forensic science has a long way to go to gain acceptance by the more traditional bastions of science; that a discipline with roots just a century old can’t compete with the likes of physics, astronomy — even the origins of surgery and medicine. That the Sherlock Holmes-tinged sciences — and the human genome project notwithstanding — must prove themselves worthy and deliver solid evidence-based results through all of the so-called hocus pocus generated in forensic labs and tried in the courts. As we come to the end of the year-long celebration of DNA’s 50th birthday, it makes me wonder just how long forensic science will be required to jump though these hoops to earn its validation by members of the rest of the scientific community. If forensic science was the junk science its detractors purport it to be, is that why such strides have been made in crime detection? Is that why so many young people are flocking to forensic science undergraduate and graduate programs? Is that why millions of laypersons eagerly soak up forensic science — albeit the Hollywoodized version — in vastly popular TV shows weekly? Is that why Capitol Hill has been soliciting testimony from the field’s best and brightest forensic scientists, criminal justice representatives, crime lab directors and forensic pathologists?

We are fashioning forensic focus to be the vehicle through which these and so many other issues can have representation, spark dialogue and foster solutions that benefit practitioners of forensic science and criminal justice — and the victims of crime for whom their efforts must not be for naught. Tell me how we can make forensic focus better with every issue. Share your opinions and research, because this is your publication. And most of all, stay the course with us — it’s a journey we promise to be insightful and rewarding.