Crime Lab Project Research Papers

The Crime Lab Project is a non-profit corporation with a blog created for “raising awareness of public forensic science needs and challenges”(What is the Crime Lab Project 1). By reinforcing forensic science education and research, forensic science can contribute to a more just society, and in turn better everyone's lives. ¨A recent congressionally mandated report by the National Academy of Sciences found¨ that there are serious deficiencies in the nation's forensic science system and are in much need of reform (Public Forensic Science Needs Your Help 1). They are concerned of the “widening gap between public perceptions of forensic science and crime labs, and the reality of understaffed, under-equipped labs housed in inadequate facilities
and trying to cope with ever-increasing workloads and backlogs”(1). When looking at medicolegal death investigations, the shortcomings of the current system puts everyone in danger. ¨Throughout the United States, most medical examiners and coroners offices do not have a fraction of the resources they need to do their work, and often a jurisdiction's chief mediological investigator is someone with little or no legal, medical, or forensic science training¨ (1). With few medical students training to become forensic pathologists, these specialties will only worsen, which is a rather terrifying considering the importance of a forensic pathologist’s evidence in an investigation. Another issue the Crime Lab project covers is the necessity of forensic science not only in criminal justice, but in everyday life as well. Some of the ways in which forensic science are obvious, but many are not widely known, such as forensic science used in safety for transportation, workplace, automobile, fire prevention and suppression, and safety in public venues. Forensics are also used in medicolegal death investigations, military investigations, human rights work, disaster response, and so much more(How Does Forensic Science Affect Your Life? 2).