Module 7 Discussion Posting
Tackle every of the next questions and prompts:
Summarize one of many seven feature-comparison strategies and the findings reported by PCAST (Chapters 5 and 7).
Cite and describe one peer-reviewed supply that helps or refutes the findings made by PCAST that you just mentioned.
What actions listed in Chapter 6 of the report are related to the comparability methodology you selected to summarize?
Do you agree with the discovering? Why or why not?
Your preliminary publish must be 200 to 300 phrases so make it at 275 phrases. Title web page shouldn’t be obligatory.
A feature-comparison methodology is a scientific device utilized in forensics to determine whether or not an unidentified pattern is a member of a specific class. PCAST reported seven feature-comparison strategies, of which two are goal, and 4 are subjective. Goal strategies will be examined for validity and reliability because of well-defined procedures. Nonetheless, subjective strategies require substantial professional human judgment, which is liable to error.
Latent fingerprint Assessment, a subjective methodology first used within the 1800s, has been lauded as an infallible and possible methodology regardless of there being no confirmed validity and reliability information. Examiners evaluate a fingerprint from an unknown topic with a number of recognized prints saved in a database to evaluate whether or not the 2 match. Nonetheless, it’s uncommon to discover a well-defined latent print. Thus, examiners need to manually evaluate the latent print to the closest matching recognized print and supply a subjective conclusion. Afterward, an unbiased examiner confirms the comparability primarily based on the primary examiner’s conclusion.
The U.S. Division of Justice launched a report in 2011 on the misidentification of the 2004 Madrid bomber (U.S. DoJ, 2011). The suspect, Brandon Mayfield, was wrongly recognized utilizing latent fingerprint Assessment from the FBI database. The examiner prompted the misidentification through the use of the recognized print to create similarities with the latent print, reverse reasoning. Upon identification, the second examiner verifying the prints agreed with the primary examiner’s with out finishing up a separate comparability therefore affirmation bias.
PCAST recommends the event of goal strategies for latent fingerprint Assessment, execution of further black-box research to help in bettering reliability and the adoption of linear Assessment, comparability, and analysis course of for examiners. Examiners ought to analyze a latent print extensively earlier than evaluating it with a recognized print.
In conclusion, PCAST gives an intensive and complete. By pushing for extra black-box research and goal strategies on this subject, reliability and validity will Help scale back human enter and error altogether.
References
Govt Workplace of the President President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Know-how “Forensic Science in Legal Courts: Making certain Scientific Validity of Characteristic-Comparability Strategies.” (2016). Retrieved 28 November 2019, from https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/websites/default/information/microsites/ostp/PCAST/pcast_forensic_science_report_final.pdf
U.S. Division of Justice, Workplace of the Inspector Normal. “A Evaluate of the FBI’s Progress in Responding to the Suggestions within the Workplace of the Inspector Normal Report on the Fingerprint Misidentification within the Brandon Mayfield Case.” (2011). www.oig.justice.gov/particular/s1105.pdf.
