• 
  
  
  Home
• 
  
  Backlog
  Reduction
• Laboratory
  Assessment &
  Enhancement
  Services
• 
  
  Customized
  Training
• 
  
  Biometric
  Identification
  • What is it?
  • Why Is It Important? »
    • Corporate Responsibility
  • What Is It Used For? »
    • Kidnap/Ransom
    • Disaster Situations/
                     Incident Investigation
  • Modes of Identification »
    • DNA
    • Friction Ridge Skin
    • Facial Recognition
    • Iris Capture
    • Dental X-Ray
    • Other Modes
  • Risk Assessment & Custom BI
  • FAQs
• 
  
  Other
  Services
  • Law Enforcement
  • Corporate/Insurance
• 
  
  
  Resources
• 
  
  
  About Us
  • Matt Schwarz
• 
  
  
  Contact

In The News

2013-08-26 | The United States Has a Huge Backlog of Untested DNA Evidence
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito called it "the most important criminal procedure case that this court has heard in decades." But for now, the Court's decision in the Maryland v. King case—regarding whether police can swab your cheeks for DNA during booking—may be functionally irrelevant. The nation doesn't have a genetic-processing apparatus in place to deal with the current overload of DNA samples. There's a massive backlog of biological evidence in crime labs, and efforts to combat that backlog in recent years have failed. In the case, the majority reasoned your DNA is like a fingerprint—used to maintain identity—rather than a piece of personal information, which would require a search warrant. In a 5-4 decision, the Court maintained in Maryland v. King that it is OK for police to take a swab of a person's cheek cells after that person is booked for a crime, and that it is also OK if that DNA swab implicates the person in custody in a cold case.

2013-08-15 | St. Paul Police crime lab back up and running
St. Paul’s embattled police lab is back up and running after a scandal closed the facility last summer. The new facility has added staff and new equipment. Police Chief Tom Smith hopes the lab, now called the “Forensic Services Unit,” will earn professional accreditation in the next 18 months to two years.

2013-08-03 | Victims’ fingerprints must be taken
The requirement doesn’t make sense to the Las Cruces Police Department, whose chief is trying to schedule a meeting with Purcell for clarification, said Lt. Kerry Clements. “There are several possible ramifications of this requirement,” Clements said. “Number one, a victim may feel re-victimized by the police department … I can see why someone would think: ‘I’m the one who got burglarized. Why do you need my prints?’ ” The requirement also will create more work for Las Cruces officers who respond to property crime calls, he said.

2013-06-07 | Retested crime lab evidence can be used at trials, judge rules
St. Paul police spokesman Howie Padilla said Friday, "Obviously, we're happy with the judge's decision. ... One thing that has happened since this testimony began is we recognized the challenges that we had in our own crime lab. Since then ... we are moving forward with changes and improvements that would bring our lab back up to the standards that we expect and the community members of St. Paul deserve." The lab's recent work has been guided by accredited consultants while employees continue training, Padilla said. The lab is to reopen June 15, with its own employees doing latent fingerprint analysis, processing crime scenes and collecting DNA evidence (the lab does not process DNA).

2013-05-03 | New St. Paul police crime lab chief says quality is top priority
Her goal is to officially apply for accreditation by the end of the year, a step she calls critical to the lab’s progress. “We’re going to set some high standards for our lab,” she said Thursday afternoon at police headquarters. Lab staffers now training through the help of consultants will be tested before they work on evidence of their own, Caswell said. Continuing education and training would also be encouraged, such as routine classes for latent print examiners that focus on palm prints. She also wanted to encourage the staff to attend professional conferences.

2013-02-25 | Genetic Sleuthing, Or How To Catch The Right Identical Twin Criminal
The police in Marseille France are struggling to solve a sexual assault case. They have solid video evidence and have even matched DNA from the crime scene with two suspects but they still can’t figure it out. See, the problem is that the suspects are identical twins. Identical twins look pretty similar so unless the police get lucky like they did in Boston, video evidence can’t usually be used to tell them apart. And identical twins share the same DNA so conventional DNA tests can’t be used either. The police are in a real pickle.

2013-02-20 | Cognitive and Contextual Influences in Determination of Latent Fingerprint Suitability for Identification Judgments
Knowledge of another examiner's previous determination that the latent was unsuitable was found to increase the likelihood that the examiner would conclude that the latent was unsuitable. However, knowledge of a previous "suitable" determination by another examiner did not increase the likelihood of a "suitable" conclusion by examiners. The finding that effects were weaker, although not entirely removed, in those with IAI certification suggests that training may be an appropriate route for reducing the effect of contextual influence and bias in suitability determinations. It was also shown that a latent prints that were previous classed as "unsuitable" in a non-biasing context tended to still be judged to be "unsuitable" by examiners that were presented with the latent in a strongly biasing context (a major case in which a previous examiner was purported to have made an Individualization).

2013-02-20 | Quantitative Measures in Support of Latent Print Comparison
Latent prints of friction ridge impressions have long been useful in identification, and the methodology of examining latent prints, known as ACE-V (analysis, comparison, evaluation and verification), has been well documented. The need to quantify confidences within ACE-V has been articulated in several recent influential reports to strengthen the science of friction ridge analysis. This research addresses the evaluation of three quantitative measures: rarity of features, confidence of opinion and a probabilistic measure of similarity.

2013-02-14 | St. Paul Lab review finds errors
The police department hired two consultants to work on improving the lab after a Dakota County District Court hearing last year disclosed flawed drug-testing practices. A judge is considering admissibility of suspected drug evidence in four cases. The police chief halted the lab's drug testing and fingerprint analysis over the summer, but the lab recently resumed fingerprint work by certified analysts.

2013-02-14 | Independent review of St. Paul Police crime laboratory reports
Two independent consultants hired to review the St. Paul Police crime lab found major errors in almost every area of the lab's work. The reports they filed following their reviews were made public Thursday.