The news site of Wantagh High School.

The Warrior

The news site of Wantagh High School.

The Warrior

The news site of Wantagh High School.

The Warrior

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Forensic Studies in Technology

It’s amazing with the millions of people in the world; our criminal enforcement teams are able to find our suspects. How do they do this? The answer is through forensics. In forensics, technology is advancing.

In the event of a serial killer, how can police determine the multiple bodies are related? Well, usually serial killers have a signature. It can be posing the victims’ bodies, which can show the murderer has felt remorse. Other signatures include a particular weapon, point of injury, robbery, etc. You can usually look back at the childhood of a suspect and find something reflects that issue, once faced as a child, on the victim. Their victims tend to be of a certain profile. At times the murderer’s crimes will escalate over time as the criminal becomes more self-riotous and confident in their crimes committed. They will attempt to push the boundaries, which you can only push so far, until they accidently slip up. Most mass murderers were born as psychopaths. Some early signs of this include fire setting, cruelty to animals, lack of emotions, feels the right to do whatever, and plenty more. Containing some of this traits do not make you a psychopath, but being able to test this is great, so we can create programs to help these few have” normal” lives.

Up until around 2000, cases were usually based almost solely on eye witness testimony. A couple was riding on their way home when they stopped at a red light. They witnessed a man running up to another man on a bike a stabbing him repeatedly. Afterwards, they called to police, but neither could agree on much besides the fact it was a man in his mid-forties, black or Hispanic.

I ran a test in my Journalism class to see if a group of students could spot a gorilla, while being told to watch the team pass a ball around. Only 26% of the observers noticed the gorilla. Sometimes people are too focused on one thing to be oblivious to another. With the hype of the moment it’s hard to remember the details that may not be as small as you think.

A recent addition to the world of forensics is toxicology. This is the study of toxins in the body. This is a great advancement; due to the fact some toxins have no visible effects on the body. This study can show if there are toxins in the body and how long they have been there. Some people don’t realize the intensity of some of those stimulants. Did you know that in a high quantity, caffeine can be just as damaging as cocaine.

The CSI effect is a phenomenon that is affecting the public because of shows such as CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. The public is getting a false sense of what forensics is about. Unfortunately, this is leaking its’ way into the courtroom. People are starting to believe every case can be solved, information such as DNA can be processed quickly; so the public wants it that much quicker, and that detectives work at more than one case at a time. These things are unrealistic, no matter how impressive forensic science is it doesn’t make them superpowers.

These are reasons cases such as the Casey Anthony case should have been an open and closed case. Now that people think of cases like a forensic show want evidence to line up in an exact straight line within an unreasonable time frame. Technology has brought us both forward and back in forensics. We have this technology, but you can’t believe everything too easily.