A novel approach to forensic molecular biology education and training: it’s impact on the criminal justice system

Abstract

The managers of crime laboratories face significant hurdles when preparing new hires to become productive members of the laboratory. New hires require six months of training/experience in the crime laboratory before becoming a productive member of the Biology (DNA) section. To address this deficiency in forensic DNA education, a novel forensic education curriculum was developed and tested for three consecutive years in the forensic science program at Fayetteville State University, Fayetteville, NC. The curriculum used a CTS proficiency kit, which is the same kit used to validate the proficiency of forensic scientists in crime laboratories in the US. A cost benefit analysis suggests that training students in a classroom instead of in a crime laboratory provides both direct savings to the laboratory and significant societal savings as more DNA profiles are entered into the database. The societal benefit from the combined reduction in the amount of training in a crime laboratory and increasing the number of DNA database profiles entered into a database suggests a societal saving of $8.28 million for each of these months of reduced training.