Burglary, the third most common crime after larceny-theft and motor vehicle theft, is rarely the focus of forensic psychiatric study. While most burglaries are motivated simply by material gain, there is a subgroup of burglaries fueled by sexual dynamics. The authors differentiate two types of sexual burglaries: 1) fetish burglaries with overt sexual dynamics; and 2) voyeuristic burglaries, in ...

The perfect crime is increasingly hard to commit; almost any crime that involves physical contact inevitably leaves traces from which forensic laboratories can gather information. The jackpot for law enforcers is biological material, such as hairs or cells, that forensic scien tists use to establish the DNA profile of the suspect. Once a high-tech tool used mainly in serious criminal investigat...

Molecular systematic botany is expanding its role in forensic science. DNA based techniques have been used in criminal cases to place a suspect at the crime scene, as well as to identify strains of marijuana (1,2). These studies have used DNA obtained from individual plant specimens of a known species and have not had to overcome problems associated with DNA mixtures of unkown plant composition...

Modem forensic techniques allow DNA to be extracted from ever decreasing amounts of cellular material. Low copy number (LCN) profiling enables the production of STR profiles from small numbers of cells. Moreover, methods such as laser micro-dissection enables forensic scientists to potentially isolate individual cells for PCR. The DNA derived from haploid cells (semen) is a common source of for...

Forensic odontology is the subdiscipline of dentistry which analyses dental evidence in the interest of justice. Oral pathology is the subdiscipline of dentistry that deals with the pathology affecting the oral and maxillofacial regions. This subdiscipline is utilized for identification through oral and maxillofacial pathologies with associated syndromes, enamel rod patterns, sex determination ...

Nanotechnology has a great influence on modern technology, just like the development of DNA profiling on biotechnology in the past 50 years. Because of applying knowledge and techniques from natural science, forensic science aims to identify, individualize and evaluate evidence. Evidence will then be used to reconstruct crime scenes, guide investigations and bring criminals to justice. Nanotech...

Fingerprinting is a commonly used technique in forensic science. Factors that impact the quality of fingerprints identified at a crime scene include weather conditions, the surface itself, how the fingerprint was left and for how long. This research examines how time and exposure to the elements affect fingerprints on a variety of surfaces. Over a three-month period, different materials were ex...

The Innocence Project defines unvalidated or improper forensic science as: • the use of forensic disciplines or techniques that have not been tested to establish their validity and reliability; • testimony about forensic evidence that presents inaccurate statistics, gives statements of probability or frequency (whether numerical or non-numerical) in the absence of valid empirical data, interpre...

Background: In forensic casework, the identification of human material, especially at the scene can be extremely important. Several methods exist to date, but sometimes they lack sensitivity and specificity at detecting biological stains from human sources. Forensic RNA research using mRNA markers is still in its infancy but has provided the possibility of human stain identification. However, t...

The proposal of a discussion about the use of software to help assign likelihood ratios for forensic DNA profiling results, and the use of their output in the legal process, is both timely and important (see also related contributions elsewhere in Frontiers, e.g., Biedermann et al., 2014). Ever since their introduction in forensic science, DNA profiling analyses have been accompanied with the r...