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: Grits for Breakfast

Funding for research needed as much as oversight to validate forensic sciences

Calling for "oversight" can improve public confidence in the short term, but it's not a panacea for every public policy mess. Sometimes instead, or at least in addition, government actually must focus resources to solve a problem instead of merely "monitor" the continuing failure of existing public policies.That's why I've come to think some of the solutions championed by reformers aimed at reducing forensic errors, including many folks I've worked with, and whose opinions I respect, somewhat conveniently ignore the depth of the crisis of credibility exposed by the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences, and simply don't go far enough. As an example, John Terzano from the Justice Project has a column at Fire Dog Lake titled "Meaningful Oversight Necessary for Forensic Science" which essentially champions adding layers of bureaucracy for "oversight" and "accreditation" at crime labs "to ensure the objectivity and reliability of forensic science...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on March 02, 2010 (boomark / email).