CLPEX Chat Board

An interesting article on a study on that Forensic Evidence is not very productive in solving crime.

http://www.boston.com/news/science/arti ... _evidence/
The article is also listed on CLPEX.

There are also some counter arguments to the STUDY.

But science cannot lie (only misinterpreted) or is that evidence.

For those interested in more on this subject, look up works (articles, papers, presentations) by Joseph L. Peterson, Michael V.K. Gilliland and Steven Mihajlovic in early-mid 1980's. An internet search on names, such as "Joseph L. Peterson" will provide source information for material.

Hi all

This paragraph stood out to me

'A mere 13.5 percent of the murder cases reviewed actually had physical evidence that linked the suspect to the crime scene or victim. The conviction rate in those cases was only slightly higher than the rate among all other cases in the sample. And for the most part, the hard, scientific evidence celebrated by crime dramas simply did not surface. According to the research, investigators found some kind of biological evidence 38 percent of the time, latent fingerprints 28 percent of the time, and DNA in just 4.5 percent of homicides.'

So, of the 13.5% of homicides only a 28% had fingerprints (I guess that where positive??) and only 4.5% had DNA. Wow. My high school math has long been forgotten does that mean that less than 1% of all homicides where a conviction is obtained had DNA evidence and 3-4% had fingerprint evidence?

What are the actual figures then?

There must be something wrong with the way I am reading this