Forensic Sciences

The Goal of this program is to manage forensic science programs and direct research efforts to develop performance standards, guidelines, and reports to advance the technologies associated with the forensic science field. To provide innovative and validated test methods that will successfully undergo the scrutiny of our adversarial justice system.

The term "forensic" conjures up a vivid association with several major television shows. These shows provide a brief look into the basic principles and theories of forensic sciences and how the sciences are used to solve criminal and civil cases. Although these TV shows imply the investigators commonly are experts in all facets of the scientific disciplines, the reality is, that premise is far from the truth. Scientific research at NIST starts with understanding the fundamentals of science, from which standards are created. These standards are the focal point of the forensic science program at the Office of Law Enforcement Standards (OLES). This supporting research may require several months or several years to come to fruition. Whatever the length of time, the end result is a standard that provides the necessary basis by which forensic analysts provide the scientific results that meet judicial acceptability.

The diversity of forensic applications requires a multi-disciplinary approach, and thus work in this area has been distributed across many NIST laboratories. For example, projects relating to computer usage in crimes are based in the Information Technology Laboratory (ITL). These projects address issues such as: the evaluation of investigative software, the prevention of inadvertent modifications of electronic files under investigation and the development of a National Software Reference Library (NSRL) that helps computer analysts to quickly identify suspect files on a hard drive. The Chemical Science and Technology Laboratory (CSTL) has been assigned all aspects of DNA research and the creation of biological standard reference materials (SRMs). The Precision Engineering Division has been assigned projects addressing bullet and cartridge cases and the Building and Fire Research Laboratory (BFRL) handles projects related to burn pattern recognition, measurement and simulation of ignition sources, and computer simulations of actual fire events.