In this new edition of Criminalistics, the noted forensic scientist Richard Saferstein brings the reader into the crime lab for a firsthand look at the role of science in the criminal justice system.

Criminalistics focuses its attention on the up-to-date technologies police rely on to apprehend criminal perpetrators and to link them through trace evidence to crime scenes. This new edition emphasizes the latest DNA profiling technologies, which include STR and mitochondrial DNA. The book details how the creation of a new nationwide DNA data bank has been designed to apprehend the mobile criminal. Today, the ability to detect less than one-billionth of a gram of DNA means that forensic scientists can extract critical information at crime scenes from stamps and envelopes licked with saliva, a cup or can that has come in contact with a person's lips, chewing gum, the sweat band of a hat, or a bed sheet containing an individual's skin cells.

As forensic science enters the new millennium, the impact of the digital revolution has led to the development of data banks for fingerprints, fired bullets, hair, paint, and shoeprints. This updated revision of Criminalistics emphasizes the new high-tech advances being made in crime scene investigation, as well as in arson and explosion investigation. A major portion of the text is devoted to how common items of physical evidence are located at crime scenes, processed in the crime lab, and preserved for presentation in the courtroom.

Like all facets of modern life, the Internet has touched forensic science. This new edition introduces the reader to basic concepts of Internet use and encourages exploration of the latest websites particularly relevant to forensic science and criminal investigation.

In addition to this book's comprehensive coverage of forensic science, a newly revised laboratory manual has been separately designed to supplement this edition.

Richard Saferstein, Ph.D., retired in 1991 after serving 21 years as the Chief Forensic Scientist of the New Jersey State Police Laboratory, one of the largest crime laboratories in the United States. He currently acts as a consultant for attorneys and the media in the area of forensic science. During the O. J. Simpson criminal trial, Dr. Saferstein provided extensive commentary on forensic aspects of the case for the Rivera Live show, the E! television network, ABC radio, and various radio talk shows. Dr. Saferstein holds degrees from the City College of New York and earned his doctorate degree in chemistry in 1970 from the City University of New York. From 1972 to 1991, he taught an introductory forensic science course in the criminal justice programs at the College of New Jersey and Ocean County College. These teaching experiences played an influential role in Dr. Saferstein's authorship in 1977 of the widely used introductory textbook Criminalastics: An Introduction to Forensic Science, currently in this eighth edition. Saferstein's basic philosophy in writing Criminalistics is to make forensic science understandable and meaningful to the nonscience reader, while giving the reader an appreciation for the scientific principles that underlie the subject.

Dr. Saferstein currently teaches a course on the role of the expert witness in the courtroom at the law school of Widener University in Wilmington, Delaware. He has authored or co-authored more than 35 technical papers covering a variety of forensic topics. Dr. Saferstein has co-authored Lab Manual for Criminalistics (Prentice Hall, 2004) to be used in conjunction with this text. He has also edited the widely used professional reference books Forensic Science Handbook, Volume I, second edition (Prentice Hall, 2002) and Forensic Science Handbook, Volumes II and III (Prentice Hall, 1988, 1993). Dr. Saferstein is a member of the American Chemical Society, the American-Academy of Forensic Sciences, the Forensic Science Society of England, the Canadian Society of Forensic Scientists, the International Association for Identification, the Mid-Atlantic Association of Forensic Scientists, the Northeastern Association of Forensic Scientists, the Northwestern Association of Forensic Scientists, and the Society of Forensic Toxicologists.