Forensic Science in the UK: “A Threat to Justice”

Mike Bowers writes:
See more conversation from the BBC from yesterday right here. The effects of the UK government’s closure of its FSS (similar to the US’ FBI lab) and privatization for forensic services in the UK have produced poor results and has critics claiming foul. This current flap in the UK is analogous to this country’s current condition of multitudinous local, state, and regional federal government forensic servers where no one is running and overseeing the forensic science industry (as the FFS did until 2012).

Carole McCartney's avatarWrongful Convictions Blog

UnknownThe state of the forensic science ‘market’ in the UK has been the subject of much debate (see here…  ) March 2012 saw the closure of the main provider of forensic services, the Forensic Science Service, by order of the government. It was deemed that with the service ‘losing’ (note ‘losing’ rather than ‘costing’) 2million pounds a year, it could no longer be sustained. Instead, forensic provision is now provided by private companies, individual consultants, or the police themselves. Now, the highly respected Science and Technology Select Committee of MPs has produced a report on the ‘fiasco’ of forensic science in the UK, roundly criticising the government move to close the FSS and warning of the dangers of miscarriages of justice. The provision of forensic science is now fragmented, dangerously unsupervised and the lack of research funding will only make matters worse in the years to come. The damning report…

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About csidds

Dr. Michael Bowers is a long time forensic consultant in the US and international court systems.
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