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Forensic sciences

NIJ Directors, 1969–Present

NIJ was created in 1969 and has been in the forefront of nearly every innovation in criminal justice research and policy ever since. The following Director's have led the Institute in that work. Select a director to view a list of their speeches, remarks, and testimony.

Fighting Crime With Science

Date Published
November 4, 2015

NIJ research and development projects hold promise for significantly improving forensic science disciplines.

How Reliable Are Latent Fingerprint Examiners?

September 2015

Brian Cerchiai discusses a NIJ-supported a study conducted by the Miami-Dade Police Department on the accuracy of fingerprint examiners. The study found that fingerprint examiners make extremely few errors. Even when examiners did not get an independent second opinion about their decisions, they were remarkably accurate. But when decisions were verified by an independent reviewers, examiners had a 0% false positive, or incorrect identification, rate and a 3% false negative, or missed identification, rate.