Credit: CORBIS

Fresh career opportunities could develop in forensic science, if recommendations in a report from the US National Research Council are adopted, says forensic scientist and co-author Jay Siegel.

Forensic scientists need to prove their competence with recognized qualifications at different levels, says Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward. Concerned members of Congress had asked the National Academy of Sciences to propose reforms that would coordinate and improve forensic-science analyses across federal, state and local jurisdictions. The report recommends mandatory certification for the pathologists, biologists, physicists, chemists and medical officers working in forensics.

To set these rigorous standards for the field, it calls for the creation of an independent National Institute of Forensic Science. Without such an institute, says report co-chair Constantine Gatsonis, a biostatistician at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, forensic science will continue to lack the funds needed to mature the field.

More thorough scientific evaluation of forensic protocols may generate new jobs, predicts Siegel, director of the forensic and investigative sciences programme at Purdue University in Indianapolis, Indiana. “The biggest problem in forensic science is a lack of science-based research to settle what can be considered evidence in the courtroom.” For example, he says, despite the routine acceptance of fingerprints in the courts, evidence is still lacking as to how well a given fingerprint identifies a specific person.

Siegel believes that if Congress adopts some of the recommendations, the field will experience a hiring boom when the economy recovers. “There is a tremendous pent-up need for new scientists,” says Siegel. A 2005 survey, Census of Publicly Funded Forensic Crime Laboratories, 2002, of crime-lab directors indicated 1,900 additional forensic scientists were needed to get case management down to the desired 30-day turnaround. And, Siegel says, staffing needs have only increased since then.

At present, certification programmes for individuals and accreditation of education programmes and crime laboratories are voluntary. However, these are not all supervised by the American Academy of Forensic Sciences (AAFS), which has spent the past decade establishing a board to examine the certifying bodies in current existence. Although AAFS president Thomas Bohan agrees that certification is important, he thinks the academy's existing system is sufficient. He believes that the report's emphasis on certification will prod most forensic scientists and institutions to flock to AAFS-approved certifying boards, making a new overseeing body unnecessarily complicated.

The recommendations could also push more forensic-science educational programmes to seek accreditation. Of the roughly 200 now operating, according to AAFS, only 19 are accredited by its Forensic Science Education Programs Accreditation Commission.