Published June 10, 2019

 

One of the many shortcomings of the forensic identification community is the fact that it appears only positive identifications are rewarded by management and the agencies they represent. In fact, I’ve never come across an award for an exclusion decision.

We used to joke when an award was granted, was it for a good technical identification or was it because the case was significant?

I’ve recently polled the forensic community and found only two instances where people were acknowledged for their inconclusive decisions. In both cases, the inconclusive decision leaned towards an identification. Most people received accolades when a print was identified and when the case was important.

Friction ridge analysis must be a neutral evidence-focused process. This process requires that the evidence meet or exceed a series of thresholds. These thresholds are somewhat situational and are dependent on several criteria. These thresholds can easily be affected by the plethora of biases that we know affect all human beings – even the most seasoned friction ridge examiners.

Biases must be mitigated at every opportunity by not only the practitioner, but also management and to some extent the agency that employs the examiner. When people only get acknowledged for identification decisions it’s easy to see why they can be unduly influenced into making difficult identification decisions, particularly when the decision may result in a benefit to the examiner making the decision.

I think it’s time for agencies that employ friction ridge analysts to take responsibility for the way they reward and acknowledge their people. The work of friction ridge analysts typically results in the following levels of decision:

98%+ exclusion decisions

1%+ identification decisions

-0.5% inconclusive decisions.

It’s sad to think that these analysts only deserve acknowledgement for the 1% portion of the work they do, and only when the case is significant. Exclusion decisions can sometimes save an incredible amount of time in investigation and inconclusive decisions also sometimes benefit cases.

Agencies and management should attempt to reward their examiners for quality decisions and not just the “touchdowns” they currently reward. They can help this process along by ensuring that managers are trained to competency in friction ridge science so they can understand what a difficult decision looks like.

If we get to that place, I’ll call that a touchdown!

 

Shane Turnidge

www.sstforensics.com