Impacts
Economic Impact
(-) Costs
Reliability of evidence produced for a criminal trial is dependent on the quality of forensic equipment. In forensic science, the constant need for analysis of DNA evidence to aid investigation hence requires reliable experts and laboratories. As such, the cost of equipment and training and proficiency programs will be fairly monumental. For example, the three regional laboratories within New York City have estimated variable costs of $1.4 million per year alone (The National Academic Press, n.d., p 153). Further costs are incurred in upgrading and maintaining current forensic technology, such as development of quality control mechanisms in forensic laboratories and upgrading of nationwide criminal databases (The National Academic Press, n.d., p 152). Thus, such technology can cause larger fiscal demands on society.
Social Impact
(+) Jobs
The current state of forensic technology provides a rewarding and stable employment
for graduates of biochemistry, chemistry and other related forensic fields. Due to the
positive portrayal of the field of forensics by the media in recent years, as well as a
rising crime rate, many students are attracted to major in forensic science/chemistry
programs. This has significantly increased the number of forensics-trained graduates.
(+) Security and Stability in Society
The deterrent effect that efficient and accurate forensic technology has on potential criminals helps to keep crime rates within an acceptable statistical value. This not only applies to the ‘usual’ crimes like robbery, murder, grievous hurt, rape and theft, but also with the development of more advanced policing technology, cyber criminals and white-collar criminals can even be tracked and clamped down upon.
Also, information databases used by forensic scientists and law enforcement agencies such as the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS) and the National Integrated Ballistics Network set up by the FBI, now enjoy extensive application over many different states within a country and look poised to be further extended over different countries in the future. As such, this will also aid in reducing transnational crime as well as prevent criminals from escaping the country.
(-) Smarter criminals and crimes
However, just as how crime-solving technology has evolved, criminal psychology and criminal usage of sophisticated gadgets/tools have evolved as well. Smarter criminals might make use of certain advanced knowledge about the forensic field to either evade detection or even incriminate someone else using forensic evidence.
As such, in view of current forensic technology’s impacts and limitations (the latter to be subsequently explored in the next tab), proposed visions for the future of crime solving hope to eliminate and ameliorate them.
(+) Savings
With the current advanced technology used in forensic science, investigations of deaths and crimes produce comprehensive results faster and easier. This has possibly functioned as a deterrent to most potential criminals from committing crimes as the trade-off from being identified or caught is too high. Such technology has helped law enforcement agencies such as the Denver Crime Laboratory Bureau to reduce property crimes by more than 30%, saving more than $5 million in police costs and preventing an estimated of $36.8 million of property loss in the past 3 years (Life Technologies, n.d.).
