Finding new footing for forensic science oversight

Abstract

Forensic science policy in the U.S. is facing a major restructuring just four years after the first federal attempt to push more science into the field of forensics. In April, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that he was closing down the National Commission on Forensic Science. The commission—a joint creation of the Department of Justice and the National Institute of Standards & Technology—was designed to foster consensus among judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, forensic science practitioners, and research scientists on ways to improve the reliability of forensic science, which is used to detect crime. Additionally, NIST is deciding whether it should revamp a group it created to help improve the standards that guide forensic science practitioners, the Organization of Scientific Area Committees for Forensic Science (OSAC). Those changes leave the fate of forensic science policy up in the air just as those oversight entities were starting to make an impact on