Forensic officer

FORENSIC OFFICER
Definition:
A forensic officer, forensic scientist, or crime scene investigator is a highly-trained law enforcement officer, often with a college degree in science and/or criminaljustice. He assists other officers in investigating crimes and analyzes evidence in a lab and at a crime scene.

A forensic officer may also have the title of forensic scientist, crime sceneinvestigator, forensic engineer, or forensic DNA technician. Forensic officers may give evidence in court, and work with the police and other officials in solving crimes.

Roles:

Forensic scientistsperform two roles in their work. One is to analyze physical evidence found either on a victim, at the scene of a crime, or both and to compare it to evidence found on the suspect. The other is to provideexpert testimony in a court of law.

Nature of the work:

Forensic scientists analyze the physical evidence they receive from police, then prepare reports describing the results of theiranalysis. Those documents, along with forensic scientists’ expert testimony, can be important prosecutorial tools for convicting the accused.
Duties:
Crime Scene Investigation
Forensic officers workwith the police to collect trace evidence from crime scenes for analysis. Trace evidence can include body fluids, fibers, fingerprints and chemicals.
Computer Forensics
A forensic officer specializingin cyber or computer crimes investigates fraud, hacking, Internet and email abuse, and in some cases, the deletion or transmission of classified, financial data.

Toxicology
The analysis of bodilyfluids and tissues for alcohol, drugs, and toxic substances including poisons is conducted by forensic officers.
DNA
The forensic officer is responsible for extracting DNA from body fluid and hairsamples from crime scene investigations to help find a criminal, discover diseases, or perform paternity testing.
Lie Detection
Forensic officers conduct and determine the validity of a polygraph...