The Forensic Science Education Blog

Fraud is big and getting bigger. Generally speaking, fraud is defined as actions that deceive for financial or personal gain—a category broad enough to include everything from lying about one’s age to masterminding a billion-dollar pyramid scheme.

Forensic science and crime scene investigation are necessary to bring criminals to justice, and this collection of cool forensics blogs help shed light on what goes on behind the scenes, and in some cases how forensics is being used or was used to bring criminals to justice. Without forensic scientists, toxicologists, or osteologists, thousands of crimes would go unsolved every year.

Benjamin Franklin said that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” and this quote remains relevant, particularly regarding crime prevention. Not only does crime prevention help keep communities safe, but it also can save lives and save money.

Cybersecurity has become one of the driving narratives of the 21st century. In recent years, cybercriminals have shut down critical national infrastructure, interfered with presidential elections, and held both companies and institutions for ransom.

According to the FBI’s Crime Data Explorer, violent crime is at some of its lowest rates in recorded history. But the public’s appetite for stories about those crimes is more voracious than ever. Today’s true crime stories have captured the public’s imagination and impacted how investigations are conducted and how justice is dispensed—sometimes positively, and sometimes negatively.

Do you think crimes always get solved? Think again. These 10 excellent cold case blogs shed light on gruesome murders that remain in need of resolution. The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) defines a cold case as one in which “probative investigative leads have been exhausted.”

Investigators rely on evidence to help them solve crimes. Sometimes, evidence isn’t readily available or has been degraded due to time or exposure to the elements. When this happens, alternative forensic research methods can be applied to extract results. One such method is the use of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) typing.

White-collar crime is, on the surface level, nonviolent, which sometimes lends it a false patina of benignity. But these are not victimless crimes. In college admissions fraud, students gaining fraudulent admission to universities take places away from those who would earn it honorably, depriving them of high-quality education and the lifetime earnings that go with it.

Podcasts like Serial set a new bar for the genre. Suddenly, true crime podcasts weren’t just guilty pleasures: they were Peabody-winning stories that could have an impact on precisely the topics that they were exploring.

Four-year degree-seeking students choose from either a bachelor of arts (BA) or a bachelor of science (BS) degree in criminal justice. Depending on the school program, specializations are available in homeland security, criminology, law enforcement, corrections, or cybercrime. Earning a degree specialization involves completing a unique course sequence of classes to deepen one’s knowledge and prepare for a career or graduate degree in a related field.

Practically every form of cyber-attack increased in 2021. Ransomware, in particular, saw a steep uptick, but the costs could one day be measured in more than just financial terms: as networked systems run more of our world’s critical infrastructure, their failure can have life and death consequences. At the same time, the growing adoption of networked systems means cybersecurity professionals have that much more to guard.

Forensics has quietly become one of the biggest beneficiaries of the tech boom. But there’s still plenty of red tape, antiquated systems, and waste that gets in the way. Here are some of the best apps for streamlining and improving forensic science and investigation, both in education and practice.

For aspiring criminal justice students, two of the greatest concerns are how much a program costs and whether or not the school provides adequate job placement services. The Federal Reserve (2017) revealed that student debt in the US reached $1.4 trillion and had overtaken credit cards as the leading source of US debt a few years ago.

The planet is changing due to human activity and not for the better. Nearly 100 percent of the increase in global temperatures is due to human activities. Consequences of this temperature rise include more severe storms, increased drought, rising sea levels, loss of species, and loss of food.

Overall, finding a bachelor’s, master’s degree or certificate in a forensics or criminal justice discipline may abet one’s professional goals, in addition to being an interesting path in a service-oriented career.