Dr. Hasan Buker

BACKGROUND: Forensic science has become a gold standard for the criminal and justice systems. Several intentional misleading and unintentional erroneous examination reports bring the issue of malpractice in these institutions to the public attention. These malpractices of forensic experts can easily deceive the courts and cause wrongful convictions. It is, therefore, extremely vital to identify the root causes and figure out effective prevention strategies of these problems. This study intends to make contributions in this regard.

METHOD: Following a qualitative methodology, in this research study semi-structured, in-depth interviews were conducted with 28 forensic experts. Their reactions to the examples of notorious malpractice cases, views on the causes and suggestions to prevent these cases were asked in a by-one-by interview setting. The transcripts of the interviews were analyzed with axial and open coding strategies to figure out the patterns. Based on the patterns, a general theoretical development was made in order to point out specific policy options to maintain integrity of examinations conducted in these labs.

RESULTS: The interview data indicated that the occurrence of malpractice cases are resulted from multiple factors embedded both in and around the forensic institutions. First set of factors were from the organizational environment like the courts and law enforcement agencies. Second set of factors were within the organization itself. In this regard, participants indicated the failures of the individual forensic examiners (active failures), failures in the management strategies of these organizations (latent failures) and the failures of ineffective checks and balances.

CONCLUSION: This research indicates that the malpractice in forensic institutions is far more complicated than individual breakdowns of forensic experts. An effective prevention strategy, hence, should maintain a holistic perspective which should; a) consider defeating negative effects of external organizations’ surrounding forensic institutions, b) decreasing active failures of forensic examiners, c) removing managerial deficiencies (latent failures), and d) strengthening quality assurance mechanisms (checks and balances).