Here are some fun facts about forensics. It is often thought that police forensics has been a relatively new contribution to interpreting, reconstructing, and solving crimes in our society.  Quite the contrary, police forensics, or more accurately described as forensic science, has been a part of history for more than a hundred years.

What is forensic science? 

The word “forensic” comes from the Latin word “forensis”, which simply means forum.  Today, the area of police forensics is split into two major working categories: criminalistics and forensic science.

Criminalistics is designed to develop and interpret physical evidence; namely, to identify the actual substance, object, or instrument used in the surrounding events of a crime scene.  Fingerprints, impression evidence, and trace evidence all fall into this category of expertise.  While forensic science, also referred to as forensic medicine or medical jurisprudence, encompasses some of the specialized areas…