The Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory
J. Edgar Hoover · The University of Chicago Law Review · 1943
THE Federal Bureau of Investigation of the United States De- partment of Justice years ago realized the need for careful consideration of evidence in criminal cases by trained technicians.Acting to meet this need, a Technical and Research Laboratory was established in the fall of 1932 at Washington, D.C., to assist in the current investigations conducted by the FBI's Special Agents and to make available to police and law enforcement officers the scientific aids to criminal investigations.In addition, research work in police sciences is conducted in the Bureau's Technical Laboratory at Washington, and numerous contributions to the field of science in law enforcement are made through the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin and other publications.The manner and method of operation of the FBI Technical Laboratory are designed to give to the courts and juries disinterested, judicial, expert testimony.The Bureau experts are not interested in securing convictions, but only in reporting the results of their scientific findings.Their efficiency and status are not judged by the number of convictions, but rather by the skill of the work which they perform.The Laboratory is composed of scientists, each one of whom is a specialist in his particular field, and each of whom has been thoroughly investigated and whose character, reputation, and integrity are beyond reproach.The scientist must be of unquestionable character and unbiased, so that after a disinterested methodical study of the evidence, he can arrive at a conclusion as to the existing conditions and interpret them in the best interests of justice.The criminological scientists of the FBI have risen in distinction and increasingly gained the confidence of the investigators, the prosecutors, and the courts.The conclusion of the laboratory technician following his examination of evidence submitted has a distinct, twofold value.First, it furnishes the investigator with definite information concerning the condition of the evidence and the meaning of such condition.Second, to the prosecutors and to the courts, these conclusions of the expert when properly reached by sound and approved methods furnish conclusive, demonstrative evidence of a most desirable kind.