Forensic Science Service

Once upon a time, this country had something called a Forensic Science Service, headquartered at one time at Trident Court on the Birmingham Business Park near Meriden, a place which is the centre of gravity of England - perhaps taken together with some of the other constituents of the once united kingdom. Also, I think, something to do with cycling in days gone by. With Meriden being the place where I used to stay when I was visiting Trident Court, more particularly at the Bull's Head (reference 1). There is also an old church, oddly placed on a small hill nearby and floodlit at night.

This Forensic Science Service was closed down about ten years ago, to be replaced by a collection of smaller operations, mostly privatised. See reference 2.

All this by way of preamble to advertisement of an article in this week's number of the NYRB about the state of forensic science in the US, where forensic science is largely in state hands, largely privatised and far too cosy with police and prosecutors. And without any central oversight of methods and standards, not very scientific, despite the grand language often deployed in court. It all looks like a bit of a disaster. Criminal Justice on the cheap, with the report on the whole sorry business at reference 3 having been largely shelved by Trump on account of being something from the Obama stable. Freely available to all - but will anyone in our austerised (or perhaps Bullingdonned) Ministry of Justice have the time to read it?

From where I associate to the once popular radio programme called 'The Men from the Ministry'.

The article is written by one Jed S. Rakoff, a district judge in New York who has written extensively for the NYRB.

Reference 1: https://www.thebullsheadmeriden.co.uk.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forensic_Science_Service.

Reference 3: Report to the President: Forensic Science in Criminal Courts: Ensuring Scientific Validity of Feature-Comparison Methods - Executive Office of the President President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology - 2016.