CSI Black Eye

Yes, there has been a rash of CSI/forensic lab scandals over the past few years, as this NPR story details. Criminal justice system leaders face a structural challenge in overseeing labs whose science is difficult, if not impossible, for them to fathom.  And peer accreditation faces an equal challenge if, as this story indicates, reviewers are presented with false “complying” paperwork and empty assertions of the “procedural purity” of the lab’s personnel and practices. I think the piece is on the money in placing accountability with individual labs, whose leaders control the ethical culture of their operations. Though the story features a miscreant lab chemist, local accountability would be better served if her boss’s photos, captioned with “resignation,” highlighted the piece.