Misconceptions About Forensic Sciences

Many television and movies often portray forensic sciences as a quick and easy method of solving cases and crimes. In reality, it is not a quick one-step solution to problems we face as crime analysts, police, and forensic specialists. I will tell you some common misconceptions about the reality of forensic sciences. 

#1 The accuracy of results 

Most people often just assume that all forensic evidence is accurate evidence, and then take results at face value. The reality of it is that forensic analyses are not perfect and most techniques do not have a known error rate. Analysts may never actually find out if their work was correct in some cases because there is no ground truth in real-life cases. Just because someone was convicted does not mean that the results of that forensics test were accurate. Much of the evidence can also be contaminated. Take, for example, a rough and blurry fingerprint of poor quality. 

#2 Forensic analysis as an objective science created by scientists

Just because science is in the name does not mean it adheres to the scientific method or makes it a science. All but DNA analysis, many forensic techniques do not use scientific safeguards and procedures when handling the forensic work. This disrupts how evidence is processed and analyzed. Without standard operating procedures, it can be hard to make this type of work objective in nature. 

#3 Forensic availability 

Many of us may come to assume that all crimes and cases have some forensic evidence available because of how often this type of evidence medium is shown in the media and how often it is talked about in the news. This is far from the truth. Forensic evidence can be rare in cases, and whenever it is available, it can sway jurors and decision-makers heavily towards the side that provided the evidence. This can lead to biased outcomes. Even when evidence is available to be analyzed, testing is slow and expensive thus, reserved for only the utmost serious cases that involve many crimes or charges. 

#4 Forensic evidence can tell us whether or not someone committed a crime

This is false. There is really no tried and true method of identifying if someone committed a crime solely based on forensic evidence. All physical evidence is still circumstantial and usually cannot be said as to when that evidence was deposited. The presence of DNA alone like a fingerprint can mean that a person was at the crime scene but still, cannot fully prove that they committed that crime at the specific time. It can only be inferred that they were one time at the scene. 

#5 Forensic science reliability has no variation across types of evidence submitted 

There is no foundational testing in the methods of forensic science. Furthermore, different types of forensic disciplines have variability between them, and even within one discipline, its reliability still varies. The evidence and data results can heavily depend on the specific forensic analyst's training, skills, and experience in the field. Much of the work is done by humans and is therefore prone to normal human errors. If someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed and had a rough morning start, for example, it can easily disrupt and affect the outcome of the forensic analysis. There is a general tendency to overestimate the reliability of all forensic methods because of their prevalence in entertainment, news, and media. People have come to believe that forensic evidence is the norm in crime cases called the CSI effect (you can read my article on this in a previous criminology journal post!).