crime laboratory

crime laboratory, facility where analyses are performed on evidence generated by crimes or, sometimes, civil infractions. Crime laboratories can investigate physical, chemical, biological, or digital evidence and often employ specialists in a variety of disciplines, including behavioral forensic science, forensic pathology, forensic anthropology, crime-scene investigation, and ballistics. Many crime labs are publicly funded and administered by federal, state or provincial, or local government, although there are a growing number of private labs that specialize in fields such as drug analysis and DNA fingerprinting. England and Wales are among the few places in the world to have exclusively privatized crime labs.

Public crime laboratories in the United States

Of the approximately 400 public crime labs in the United States, only a handful are administered by the federal government. One of the most famous of those is that of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which processes evidence from FBI investigations and from violent crimes submitted by U.S. law-enforcement agencies, free of cost. At the state level, all states maintain a crime-lab system, though there have been limited efforts at coordination and regional planning between states. Many city and county labs are independent of statewide systems. The majority of labs are located within police or sheriff’s departments, although some are run by prosecutors or the state department of justice. A few have been subsumed within medical examiner’s labs, and some are associated with universities.

Sections of crime laboratories

All crime labs have some sort of evidence-intake unit, where evidence is received and assigned a unique laboratory and case identifier. That may be a number assigned by a clerk or a bar code affixed to each item and tracked by computer. The bar-code system generates an automatic chain of custody of the evidence and makes it possible to determine its location in the lab at any time.

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From log-in, the evidence is usually stored in a secure environment, which may be a temporary storage area or the main storage area for all evidence in the lab, until it is assigned to one or more examiners. Examiners may have separate storage areas for their own evidence. From here, crime labs vary greatly and offer different levels of service. In a system of regional laboratories, there is generally at least one lab that offers all the services available in that state or province, whereas others offer less-comprehensive services.

Drug units of crime labs analyze illicit drugs or identify unknown pills, powders, or liquids that may be illicit. Whereas presumptive tests, such as reactive colour tests, may be used to generally indicate which type of substance is present (e.g., heroin or methamphetamines), chemists use gas chromatography/mass spectrometry to precisely determine the chemical composition of an unknown substance. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime launched the International Quality Assurance Programme in 1995 to improve and standardize the work of drug testing in crime labs around the world.

The biology unit analyzes evidence such as blood, semen, saliva, bones, plant matter, and insects. Bodily fluids are some of the major forms of evidence handled by that unit and can be used to conduct DNA fingerprinting to identify both the victims and the perpetrators of violent crimes. Bloodstain patterns, especially back and forward splattering, can reveal the positioning of an assailant and a victim at the time of a shooting and can indicate where and how victims or assailants moved after a crime occurred. Bones can reveal the age, sex, size, stature, health, and ethnic population of a decedent, and the presence of bone anomalies, metal plates or pins, or specific dental characteristics can help confirm an identify. Hair and skin cells may also be studied in the biological unit, though that type of analysis is often grouped with the trace-evidence unit. Botanical and fungal evidence, including spores, seeds, and leaves, can provide geographical insights as to the location of a crime scene or the perpetrator’s movements, and insects collected from a decomposing body can be analyzed to determine the time elapsed since death. Forensic scientists in that unit may be called to crime scenes to collect blood spatter and other biological evidence.

The trace-evidence unit analyzes evidence such as fibres, fire and explosive residues, glass, soils, paints and coatings, and other materials. Infrared spectroscopy can be used to identify the structure of substances such as paint or fibres and allows forensic technicians to match trace evidence from a crime scene or body to that found on a suspect or vehicle. Trace evidence from arson investigations can be analyzed by using gas chromatography to determine the accelerants used to start the fire. Larger labs may have a separate explosives and fires unit.

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Analyses in the firearms and tool-marks unit include comparison of spent bullets and cartridges to weapons, determination of distance of firing, ability of a weapon to fire, and restoration of obliterated serial numbers on weapons. In a number of countries, markings on a shell or bullet are photographed through a microscope and compared with information in national databases. Because of methodological similarities, many firearms analysts also handle tool-mark cases, such as determining whether a pair of wire cutters cut a particular wire.

The fingerprint unit processes latent and patent fingerprints. Those prints are usually compared with inked fingerprints from a suspect or victim of a crime. Examiners may also use an automated fingerprint identification system (AFIS) to conduct database searches of crime-scene prints where there are no known prints available. Fingerprint examiners in the United States have access to the FBI’s Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System, which is the largest biometric databases in the world, containing the fingerprints and criminal histories of more than 70 million criminals as well as more than 34 million civilian fingerprints.

In the questioned-documents unit, examiners study handwriting and typewriting to determine author or authenticity. They may also analyze inks and papers as well as copier toners and other forms of writing. They may be called upon to determine the absolute or relative age of a document and are confronted with altered, erased, charred, or obliterated writings that must be restored and read if possible.

The toxicology unit often supports the work of the medical examiner and may be located within that office. Forensic toxicologists evaluate organs and bodily fluids to determine the presence of any substances that could have caused or contributed to death, such as drugs or poisons. They are also responsible for determining the alcohol concentration in blood in drunk-driving cases and may provide training and maintenance of field alcohol-testing instruments.

Most labs have a digital unit to handle evidence such as digital photographs and data retrieved from computers and personal electronics. Some digital units also analyze voice-print spectrographs from telephoned or tape-recorded threats or messages, which turn voices into graphic outputs that are unique to each person.

Crime laboratory issues

Crime labs face a number of controversial issues. Some of those are due to the increasing complexity of evidence and the greater demands put on labs. Others are due to the increased use of scientific evidence in courts and thus more scrutiny being placed upon labs and more demand for analyses.

Although crime labs are vitally important to the criminal justice system, many countries, including the United States, do not have a mandatory process for accreditation. The United States offers a system of voluntary accreditation administered by an arm of the American Society of Crime Lab Directors. That accreditation signifies that the lab meets certain minimum standards in physical plant, documentation, analytical processes, and personnel but does not assess the qualifications and competency of the employees. Additionally, as many state or provincial and municipal labs are part of law-enforcement agencies, criminal investigators, detectives, and other law-enforcement agents often have unfettered access to a lab’s facilities, usually at no cost. That access has raised concerns about tampering with evidence or biased results in favour of the prosecution. Criminal defendants frequently have no access to those public forensic science services and must often rely on private laboratories to analyze evidence for them. Most jurisdictions have some provisions for providing indigent defendants with funds to obtain forensic science services, but often the amount of funds available is insufficient to secure adequate services. Thus, there is often an imbalance in the forensic resources available to the prosecution and defense in a criminal case.