August 17, 2023 – The Macon County Sheriff’s Office recently received national recognition for its forensic standards and practices. American forensic science guidance is published on the Standards Registry of the Organization of Scientific Area Committees for Forensic Science (OSAC).
OSAC is sponsored by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and its national forensic science Standards Registry is a repository of technically sound standards, guidelines, and best practices. In August 2023, OSAC issued a certificate recognizing forensic standards implementation by the Macon County Sheriff’s Office, the first such recognition of an Illinois forensic science activity.
Although television shows tend to depict forensic science analysis as happening only in crime laboratories, that is not the real world. Some of the most common forensic work, such as finger and palm print analysis, happens in sheriff’s offices or police departments.
In its 2009 report to Congress titled “Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward,” the National Research Council included the following statement: “Two-thirds of fingerprint identifications take place outside of traditional crime laboratories.” The Macon County Sheriff’s Office is one of the hundreds of law enforcement agencies in America providing finger and palm print (latent print) examination and facial identification forensic analysis to help rapidly solve local crime.
