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Criminology

Forensic science (often shortened to forensics) is the application of a broad spectrum of sciences to answer questions of interest to the legal system. This may be in relation to a crime or to a civil action. But besides its relevance to the underlying legal system, more generally forensics encompasses the accepted scholarly or scientific methodology and norms under which the facts regarding an event, or an artifact, or some other physical item (such as a corpse, or cadaver, for example) are ascertained as being the case. In that regard the concept is related to the broader notion of authentication whereby an interest outside of a legal form exists in determining whether an object is in fact what it purports to be, or is alleged as being. The word “forensic” comes from the Latin adjective “forensis” meaning of or before the forum. During the time of the Romans, a criminal charge meant presenting the case before a group of public individuals in the forum. Both the person accused of the crime and the accuser would give speeches based on their side of the story. The individual with the best argument and delivery would determine the outcome of the case. Basically, the person with the sharpest forensic skills would win. This origin is the source of the two modern usages of the word “forensic” – as a form of legal evidence and as a category of public presentation. In modern use, the term “forensics” in place of “forensic science” can be considered incorrect as the term “forensic” is effectively a synonym for “legal” or “related to courts”. However, the term is now so closely associated with the scientific field that many dictionaries include the meaning that equates the word “forensics” with “forensic science”.

Questioned Document Examination

Questioned document examination (QDE) is known by many names including forensic document examination, document examination, diplomatics, handwriting examination, and sometimes handwriting analysis, although the latter name is not often used as it may be confused with graphology. Likewise a forensic document examiner is not to be confused with a graphologist, and vice versa. The questioned document division of a crime lab is sometimes referred to as “QD” in popular media.

The task of forensic document examination is to answer questions about a disputed document using a variety of scientific processes and methods. Many examinations involve a comparison of the questioned document, or components of the document, to a set of known standards. The most common type of examination involves handwriting wherein the examiner tries to address concerns about potential authorship.

One task of a forensic document examiner is to determine if a questioned item originated from the same source as the known item(s), then present their opinion in court as an expert witness. Other tasks include determining what has happened to a document, determining when a document was produced, or deciphering information on the document that has been obscured, obliterated or erased.

Forensic Ondontology

I have never talked about forensic odontology before so I thought I’d talk a bit about it.

Forensic dentistry or forensic odontology is the proper handling, examination and evaluation of dental evidence, which will be then presented in the interest of justice. The evidence that may be derived from teeth, is the age (in children) and identification of the person to whom the teeth belong. This is done using dental records or antemortem (prior to death) photographs. Forensic odontology is derived from latin, meaning forum or where legal matters are discussed. The first forensic dentist in the United States was Dr. Paul Revere who was known for the identification of fallen revolutionary soldiers.

The other type of evidence is that of bite marks, left on either the victim (by the attacker), the perpetrator, or on an object found at the crime scene. Bite marks are often found on children who are abused.

Forensic dentists are responsible for six main areas of practice:

* Identification of found human remains
* Identification in mass fatalities
* Assessment of bite mark injuries
* Assessment of cases of abuse (child, spousal, elder)
* Civil cases involving malpractice
* Age estimation

- Brandon Anderson

Ballistics: the basics

Many People ask me about ballistics and most of those questions are the simple one’s, e.g., how is a bullet fired from a firearm? So I thought I’d tell you all the answer. First i’ll start off by telling you that some bullets may be different in shape, size, and weight but the are all constructed generally the same. A bullet has five main parts the bullet itself, the bullet casing, the propellent, the rim, and the primer. Here’s an overview of how a bullet is fired, when the firing pin of the firearm hits the primer it makes a tiny explosion that ignites the propellent (gun powder) inside the bullet casing thus propelling the bullet  out of the barrel of the firearm.
Bullets can be matched to other bullets found at a crime scene or test fired at a crime lab, by looking trough a microscope at the fired bullets side by side you can see very fine striations left on the bullet when it was propelled out of the firearm, these striations are unique just like a fingerprint is and can be matched to one and other. Another way of matching bullet is by looking at the shell casing, provided you have the shell casing of course, and looking a the primer of a test fired bullet casing and one found at a crime scene if they are a match the area on the primer where the firing pin hit they will be the same and again these are unique.

- Brandon Anderson

Entomology: timeline

Flies and maggots can provide an approximate time of death, there very useful for cases where the body has been deceased for a long time. Only certain insects will feed and lay eggs on a dead corpse forensic entomologists study these insects, and their larvae cycles can determine whether a body has been dead for one day or three or four weeks