The closure in March of the UK’s biggest forensic science service provider, the Forensic Science Service, has finally led to some news headlines. The New Scientist reported on a survey of forensic scientists, three quarters of whom believe the closure of the FSS will lead to an increase in miscarriages of justice. The weekend papers followed with articles on the closure and increased risk of miscarriages of justice in the Guardian, and a strongly worded editorial in the Observer newspaper: ‘Closing this pioneering unit is a foolish, short-sighted act.’
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Mark Godsey
Daniel P. & Judith L. Carmichael Professor of Law, University of Cincinnati College of Law; Director, Center for the Global Study of Wrongful Conviction; Director, Rosenthal Institute for Justice/Ohio Innocence Project
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Contributing Editors
Justin Brooks
Professor, California Western School of Law; Director, California Innocence ProjectOrder his book Wrongful Convictions Cases & Materials 2d ed. here
Cheah Wui Ling
Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore
Daniel Ehighalua
Nigerian Barrister
Jessica S. Henry
Associate Professor of Justice Studies, Montclair University
Carey D. Hoffman
Director of Digital Communications, Ohio Innocence Project@OIPCommunicati1
Shiyuan Huang
Associate Professor, Shandong University Law School; Visiting Scholar, University of Cincinnati College of Law
C Ronald Huff
Professor of Criminology, Law & Society and Sociology, University of California-Irvine
Phil Locke
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Dr. Carole McCartney
Reader in Law, Faculty of Business and Law, Northumbria University
Nancy Petro
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Kana Sasakura
Professor, Faculty of Law, Konan University Innocence Project Japan
Dr. Robert Schehr
Professor, Department of Criminology & Criminal Justice, Northern Arizona University; Executive Director, Arizona Innocence Project
Ulf Stridbeck
Professor of Law, Faculty of Law, University of Oslo, Norway
Martin Yant
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What’s interesting is that they’re switching to in-house forensic analysis, which everyone seems to agree will lead to more bias entering the equation. A large number of scientist-respondents to the survey said they feel pressure to arrive at a particular result. That’s going to be more evident when things go in-house. What a shame. Is there a movement at all to try to institute blind procedures or anything to counteract the bias that no one seems to dispute will increase?
There are just so many issues here, the most worrying I believe is the almost 25% cut in forensic science spend in almost all police forces. In response to budget crises (a 20% cut in central funding across the whole police force in England and Wales), they’re cutting their use of forensic science, which also forces the private companies to do ‘bargain basement’ science to stay afloat (and to provide ‘results’ which the police will pay for – which doesn’t include negative findings…). Things are increasingly going to be done either ‘on the cheap’ or not at all, which is a serious worry without even getting onto police bias.
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