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Research and development

NIJ Announces $1.1M to Fund Research in Public Forensic Laboratories in 2024

On September 20, 2024, NIJ announced $1.1 million in funding to support three new projects under its Research and Evaluation for the Testing and Interpretation of Physical Evidence in Publicly Funded Forensic Laboratories (Public Labs R&E) program. Through its forensic science research funding, NIJ continues to improve the examination and interpretation of physical evidence across the community of practice through identification of the most efficient...

Celebrating 10 Years of NIJ’s Law Enforcement Advancing Data and Science (LEADS) Scholars Program - 2024 NIJ Research Conference

September 2024

In 2014, NIJ established the Law Enforcement Advancing Data and Science (LEADS) Scholars Program to support research-minded, mid-career sworn law enforcement officers working to integrate research into agency policy and practice. The LEADS Scholars Program helps participants develop independent research and provides support to identify current evidence on priority issues.

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Forensic Biology Research and Development at NIJ

Forensic Biology involves the collection, study, and analysis of biological material on evidence from crime scenes to provide unbiased, scientific reports for a criminal or civil court case to give a better understanding of the crime that occurred. Historically, one of the earliest forensic biologists was Sir Alec Jeffreys in 1985 using DNA fingerprinting or DNA typing to individually identify humans.[1] He targeted variable...