Return to The Crime Lab
Why is a course in Forensics a valuable offering for Staples High School? One could easily answer that it is a course that is in demand, having been requested numerous times by students at Staples prior to its inception. While that is very true, there is more to it than that.
There is a certain irony to the fact that a large number of Americans misunderstand, and often mistrust, science, yet they are fascinated with forensics (as seen by the success of the CSI franchise). Science, however, is the cornerstone of forensics; it allows the forensic scientist to eliminate what is irrelevant, and to correctly interpret what is relevant. Science is basically what will decide (through its influence on a jury) that a guilty person goes to prison, and an innocent person will go free.
In a world with a rising concern over crime levels (despite the fact that crime rates are declining), it is important that our students appreciate the role that forensics plays in modern criminal court cases. As American citizens, our students will be called upon to fulfill their civic duty as jurors. It is therefore crucial that our students be informed as to the nature of criminal investigations, and their role in the courts.
There is perhaps no other quote that better sums up the importance of forensics that that of Professor Edmond Locard, who is the father of Locard's Exchange Principle:
"Wherever he steps, whatever he touches, whatever he leaves, even unconsciously, will serve as a silent witness against him. Not only his fingerprints or his footprints, but his hair, the fibers from his clothes, the glass he breaks, the tool mark he leaves, the paint he scratches, the blood or semen he deposits or collects. All of these and more, bear mute witness against him. This is evidence that does not forget. It is not confused by the excitement of the moment. It is not absent because human witnesses are. It is factual evidence. Physical evidence cannot be wrong, it cannot perjure itself, it cannot be wholly absent. Only human failure to find it, study and understand it, can diminish its value."
Go to the Forensics Outcomes Go to the Forensics Syllabus