Have you ever wondered whether the forensic science you’ve seen on TV is anything like the real thing? There’s no better way to find out than to roll up your sleeves and do it yourself. This full-color book offers advice for setting up an inexpensive home lab, and includes more than 50 hands-on lab sessions that deal with forensic science experiments in biology, chemistry, and physics. You’ll learn the practical skills and fundamental knowledge needed to pursue forensics as a lifelong hobby—or even a career. The forensic science procedures in this book are not merely educational, they’re the real deal. Each chapter includes one or more lab sessions devoted to a particular topic. You’ll find a complete list of equipment and chemicals you need for each session. Analyze soil, hair, and fibers Match glass and plastic specimens Develop latent fingerprints and reveal blood traces Conduct drug and toxicology tests Analyze gunshot and explosives residues Detect forgeries and fakes Analyze impressions, such as tool marks and footprints Match pollen and diatom samples Extract, isolate, and visualize DNA samples Through their company, The Home Scientist, LLC (thehomescientist.com/forensics), the authors also offer inexpensive custom kits that provide specialized equipment and supplies you’ll need to complete the experiments. Add a microscope and some common household items and you’re good to go.

Scores of talented and dedicated people serve the forensic science community, performing vitally important work. However, they are often constrained by lack of adequate resources, sound policies, and national support. It is clear that change and advancements, both systematic and scientific, are needed in a number of forensic science disciplines to ensure the reliability of work, establish enforceable standards, and promote best practices with consistent application. Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward provides a detailed plan for addressing these needs and suggests the creation of a new government entity, the National Institute of Forensic Science, to establish and enforce standards within the forensic science community. The benefits of improving and regulating the forensic science disciplines are clear: assisting law enforcement officials, enhancing homeland security, and reducing the risk of wrongful conviction and exoneration. Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States gives a full account of what is needed to advance the forensic science disciplines, including upgrading of systems and organizational structures, better training, widespread adoption of uniform and enforceable best practices, and mandatory certification and accreditation programs. While this book provides an essential call-to-action for congress and policy makers, it also serves as a vital tool for law enforcement agencies, criminal prosecutors and attorneys, and forensic science educators.

Jim Fraser explains the forensic techniques used in the investigation of crime, such as DNA profiling, toxicology, trace evidence, digital forensics, fingerprints, and crime scene management, and how forensic scientists work alongside criminal investigators and lawyers.

One failing of many forensic science textbooks is the isolation of chapters into compartmentalized units. This format prevents students from understanding the connection between material learned in previous chapters with that of the current chapter. Using a unique format, A Hands-On Introduction to Forensic Science: Cracking the Case approaches the topic of forensic science from a real-life perspective in a way that these vital connections are encouraged and established. The book utilizes an ongoing fictional narrative throughout, entertaining students as it provides hands-on learning in order to "crack the case." As two investigators try to solve a missing persons case, each succeeding chapter reveals new characters, new information, and new physical evidence to be processed. A full range of topics are covered, including processing the crime scene, lifting prints, trace and blood evidence, DNA and mtDNA sequencing, ballistics, skeletal remains, and court testimony. Following the storyline, students are introduced to the appropriate science necessary to process the physical evidence, including math, physics, chemistry, and biology. The final element of each chapter includes a series of cost-effective, field-tested lab activities that train students in processing, analyzing, and documenting the physical evidence revealed in the narrative. Practical and realistic in its approach, this book enables students to understand how forensic science operates in the real world.

A practical, accessible, and informative guide to the science of criminal investigations. Covering the fundamentals, science, history, and analysis of clues, The Handy Forensic Science Answer Book: Reading Clues at the Crime Scene, Crime Lab and in Court provides detailed information on crime scene investigations, techniques, laboratory finding, the latest research, and controversies. It looks at the science of law enforcement, how evidence is gathered, processed, analyzed, and viewed in the courtroom, and more. From the cause, manner, time of a death, and autopsies to blood, toxicology, DNA typing, fingerprints, ballistics, tool marks, tread impressions, and trace evidence, it takes the reader through the many sides of a death investigation. Arson, accidents, computer crimes, criminal profiling, and much, much more are also addressed. The Handy Forensic Science Answer Book gives real-world examples and looks at what Hollywood gets right and wrong. It provides the history of the science, and it introduces the scientists behind breakthroughs. An easy-to-use and informative reference, it brings the complexity of a criminal investigation into focus and provides well-researched answers to over 950 common questions, such as ... What is the difference between cause of death and manner of death? How did a person’s skull fit into criminal evidence in the early 1800s? When were fingerprints first used to identify a criminal? How is the approximate time of death of a crime scene victim determined? What is forensic serology? What is the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System? Can a forensics expert look at skeletal remains and tell whether the person was obese? How can a simple knot analyzed in the crime lab be used as evidence? Can fingerprints be permanently changed or destroyed? How fast does a bullet travel? How was a chemical analysis of ink important in the conviction of Martha Stewart? What types of data are often retrieved from a crime scene cellphone? Can analyses similar to those used in forensics be used to uncover doping in athletics? What is the Personality Assessment Inventory? What are some motives that cause an arsonist to start a fire? What state no longer allows bite marks as admissible evidence in a trial? What is the Innocence Project? Why are eyewitness accounts not always reliable? Who was “Jack the Ripper”? Providing the facts, stats, history, and science, The Handy Forensic Science Answer Book answers intriguing questions about criminal investigations. This informative book also includes a helpful bibliography, glossary of terms, and an extensive index, adding to its usefulness.

Prominent forensic experts, scientists, and forensic science educators contribute to this textbook that covers many of the diverse aspects of forensic science. This edition includes an instructor's CD-ROM.

Covering a range of fundamental topics essential to modern forensic investigation, the fourth edition of the landmark text Forensic Science: An Introduction to Scientific and Investigative Techniques presents contributions from experts in the field who discuss case studies from their own personal files. This edition has been thoroughly updated to r