Forensic sciences

This webinar built on the concepts presented in the webinar “The Time to Collect is Now: DNA Evidence in Groping Sexual Assault Cases” presented by Dr. Julie Valentine.

Awareness of how to provide culturally appropriate and trauma informed services to the American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) community is important for forensic examiners. This webinar discussed includes jurisdictional factors affecting examinations, pertinent laws to consider, and health care services that may be available to AI/AN populations.

This webinar was presented by the NIJ Forensic Technology Center of Excellence on February 27, 2020.
 

Given the vital role of medical examiners and coroners (ME/C) in recognizing emerging trends in drug overdose deaths, partnering epidemiologists with ME/C offices can greatly enhance the utility of the significant volume of data generated by medicolegal death investigation. Epidemiologists from three unique ME jurisdictions—North Carolina, New Mexico and Virginia—share their experiences with monitoring drug overdose deaths, trends observed, and how best to utilize ME/C data to inform public health policy.

This webinar, presented in four parts, provides a definition for the phrase “death in custody” and will describe all phases of custody. Additionally, the presenter will highlight case studies of deaths, including the five manners of deaths and a special focus on drug-related deaths. Lastly, he will provide a brief overview of the position paper issued in 2017 by the National Association of Medical Examiners (Academic Forensic Pathology, 2017). This paper outlined the best practices for examination, death determination, and manner of death classification.

This webinar, presented in four parts, provides a definition for the phrase “death in custody” and will describe all phases of custody. Additionally, the presenter will highlight case studies of deaths, including the five manners of deaths and a special focus on drug-related deaths. Lastly, he will provide a brief overview of the position paper issued in 2017 by the National Association of Medical Examiners (Academic Forensic Pathology, 2017). This paper outlined the best practices for examination, death determination, and manner of death classification.

This webinar, presented in four parts, provides a definition for the phrase “death in custody” and will describe all phases of custody. Additionally, the presenter will highlight case studies of deaths, including the five manners of deaths and a special focus on drug-related deaths. Lastly, he will provide a brief overview of the position paper issued in 2017 by the National Association of Medical Examiners (Academic Forensic Pathology, 2017). This paper outlined the best practices for examination, death determination, and manner of death classification.

This webinar, presented in four parts, provides a definition for the phrase “death in custody” and will describe all phases of custody. Additionally, the presenter will highlight case studies of deaths, including the five manners of deaths and a special focus on drug-related deaths. Lastly, he will provide a brief overview of the position paper issued in 2017 by the National Association of Medical Examiners (Academic Forensic Pathology, 2017). This paper outlined the best practices for examination, death determination, and manner of death classification.

Attendees will hear from experts in agricultural policy, hemp industry analytical testing, and the DEA Special Testing and Research laboratory to obtain a better understanding of the issues that have developed for forensic drug testing since the signing of the 2018 Farm Bill.  This webinar will provide a history of the Farm Bill as it relates to the legalities of hemp and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).  Information on farming and quality testing used by the hemp industry will be presented.

Crime laboratories are exposed to risks each and every day, and it is the job of organizational leaders to balance the severity of a consequence versus the frequency of occurrence, know the laboratory's risk exposure, and proactively mitigate that risk. This webinar will discuss accessing risk exposure, strategic planning, and managing change. Additionally, how to address the stress and anxiety associated with change will be discussed.

This webinar was presented by the NIJ Forensic Technology Center of Excellence on July 26, 2022. 

After the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 (Farm Bill) was enacted in December 2018, many states rushed to make changes to their own laws to allow the hemp industry to grow and thrive in their jurisdictions. By removing hemp from the Controlled Substances Act, Cannabis sativa L. plant material with a concentration of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol less than 0.3% on a dry weight basis was no longer considered marijuana.

Legacy workflows in toxicology generally involve a drug class screen followed by a gas chromatography/mass spectroscopy (GC/MS) and liquid chromatography mass spectroscopy (LC/MS-MS) confirmation analysis. Additional techniques could also be used in workflows, but their applications were focused on specific drugs. In general, analyses were serial, limited, and often required multiple methods depending on the number of drug classes in the samples. Results required lengthy and costly workflows, especially when toxicologists were working with complicated samples.

In this webinar we discussed the theory and development of Investigative Genetic Genealogy, including some ethical and legal considerations raised by this technique.  Additionally, we explored the current status of case investigations, the impact on crime laboratories, implementation strategies, and recommendations for jurisdictions considering applying Investigative Genetic Genealogy to their unsolved cases.

This webinar was presented by the NIJ Forensic Technology Center of Excellence on January 23, 2020. 

In this webinar, we will discuss quality and accreditation, how they fit together, and the ASCLD Accreditation Roadmap and Toolkit.  We will also discuss the concepts of organizational transformation, organizational culture, and the cultivation of a quality culture in your laboratory. Lastly, we will review the various quality initiatives in forensics, including ISO TC 272, the Organization of Scientific Area Committees (OSAC) for Forensic Science, and the scientific and technical working groups (SWG/TWG).

This webinar presented the findings of the ASCLD/NIJ collaborative Gap Assessment of Stress, Vicarious Trauma and Resiliency for Forensic Science Professionals. The assessment gathered survey responses from forensic and medical examiner laboratories to evaluate vicarious trauma, burnout, job satisfaction, and participants perceptions of their organization’s resiliency efforts.  Our findings inform future directions in research, policy, and practice to better manage stress and increase resiliency among forensic professionals.

This presentation provided an overview of the activities and programs the Phoenix Police Department’s Crime Lab has implemented and the corresponding impact to the organizational culture and employee morale.

This webinar was presented by the NIJ Forensic Technology Center of Excellence on June 18, 2020.

Highly toxic, synthetic drugs introduce significant health hazards to the forensic laboratory.  Understanding current knowledge and best practices will help laboratories manage their liability. This presenter covered topics such as known risks of handling hazardous drugs, creating a practical framework for the assessment, development, and improvement of safety systems, and additional research needed regarding exposure risks.

This webinar was presented by the NIJ Forensic Technology Center of Excellence on June 25, 2020.

Molecular identification is advantageous for medicolegal death investigations involving entomological activity. This enables species-level identification of immature specimens necessary for estimating post-mortem interval and may be performed without specialized training or resources. The presenter describes a strategy effective for relevant species and demonstrates analysis of casework-type samples.

This webinar was presented by the NIJ Forensic Technology Center of Excellence on December 2, 2021.

In this study, firearms examiners were asked to use traditional microscopic methods to identify unknown bullets to the appropriate barrels. Additionally, 3D scans of these bullets were used in a matching algorithm to find similarity scores between bullets. Error rates were determined and the potential for subclass carry-over among the barrels was evaluated. 

This webinar was presented by the NIJ Forensic Technology Center of Excellence on December 16, 2021.

This webinar will expand examiners' awareness of additional areas of interest for identification purposes. Two previously undocumented toolmarks were observed in Glock pistols and could potentially be used for other make/model pistols. These new toolmarks will expand an examiner’s ability to compare fired and unfired ammunition components to each other or to a suspect firearm.

This webinar was presented by the NIJ Forensic Technology Center of Excellence on December 12, 2021.

This study assesses the production of subclass characteristics during the manufacturing of breech faces. Observations on how well subclass characteristics persist on manufactured breech faces with and without any finishing methods as well as the effect of the primer on the quality/quantity of the breech face impressions will be discussed.    

This webinar was presented by the NIJ Forensic Technology Center of Excellence on December 9, 2021.