Improvements in Forensic Science and their Impact
When giving the direction in which Forensic science is heading in the future and its effective on the criminal justice system and the law enforcement community, a simple definition is necessary to start. Forensic science is the applying of science to the criminal and civil aspects of law. It is the gathering of an item, known or unknown, to be analyzed, in a procedural and scientific manner, establishing its evidentiary value in a legal proceeding.
The evolution of Forensic science or what can be said to be the embryotic stage of forensics can be traced back to Archimedes (287–212 BC) who by the request of his king used the law of displacement to determine the purity of a supposedly pure gold crown ("Forensic Science," N.D.). As the world progressed and civilization established laws to govern the populous, so did courts to determine the guilt and innocence of individuals accused of crimes. Most of the beginning forensic methods were not classified as sciences, the rulers of the day employed the knowledge that was common for the day. Such as knowing the way a blade cut the flesh of a pig, and because of this that cut on person meant the same blade was used to injure or kill that person.
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We have gone from throwing a little dusk around, taking some photographs, or maybe picking up something discarded to having to know the temperature in which an item can be stored in a refrigerator (Fantino, J. (2016, 04/02/2016). The elements of forensics, especially the relevance and application has become so sophisticated that most law enforcement personnel would not know heads or tails of one type of particular science to another. The education of the responding officer as to the procedures of gathering evidence should be of the utmost priority, as it sets the foundation for the criminal