Crime lab

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Please improve this article if you can. (August 2007)

A crime laboratory - often shortened to crime lab - is a scientific laboratory, using primarily forensic science for the purpose of examining evidence from criminal cases.

Contents

[edit] Lab personnel

A typical crime lab has two sets of personnel:

  • Field analysts - investigators that go to crime scenes, collect evidence, and process the scene. Job titles include:
    • Forensic evidence technician
    • Crime scene investigator
    • Scenes of crime officer (SOCO)
  • Laboratory analysts - scientists who run tests on the evidence once it is brought to the lab (i.e., DNA tests, or bullet striations). Job titles include:
    • Forensic technician
    • Forensic scientist
    • Criminalist
    • Forensic Photographer

[edit] Crime labs

[edit] United States

In the United States, crime labs may be publicly or privately operated, although private laboratories typically do not respond to crime scenes to collect evidence. Public crime labs are organized at the city, county, state, or national level. A law enforcement agency that does not operate its own crime lab usually has free access to a higher level laboratory for analysis of their evidence.

  • Most states have their own crime labs, for instance Oklahoma has the OSBI, many other places have smaller yet still sufficient crime labs.

[edit] Well-known crime labs

Some well-known crime labs are:

[edit] Crime labs in popular culture

The term "crime lab" has become a part of popular culture, largely due to the TV dramas. Some of the more famous shows are:

Several non-fiction television programs, document the resolution of criminal cases based on the scientific analysis of the evidence:

[edit] External links