This is a new addition to the useful and affordable Oxford Paperback Reference series. It is also one of the more modest reference works on forensic science and related matters to appear in the last few years to be reviewed in these columns. Others include the Wiley Enyclopedia of Forensic Science (Jamieson and Moenssens, 2009) (RR 2010/085), Forensic Sciences: An Encycloepdia of History, Methods and Techniques (Tilstone et al., 2006) (RR 2007/035) and World of Forensic Science (Lerner and Lerner, 2006). The author of this new Oxford University Press contribution is a forensic chemist who has given evidence in court. The book covers the full range of forensic work provided in the USA by forensic scientist and in the UK by forensic scientists and pathologists. It does not, to any great extent, cover topics like forensic accounting or the more complex parts of engineering failures. The brief preface mentions the CSI effect, which is the increase in public awareness of forensic science (and the increased expectation of juries to be presented with forensic evidence). The information in the book however, goes back to cases like the LaFarge trial of 1840 and pioneer forensic scientists like Edmund Locard.
It is the inclusion of case histories and biographies that give this dictionary its wider appeal. Another feature that suggests a wider audience is the absence of detailed pictures of wounds and injuries. There are pictures of blood splatter. This is a fascinating evidence type as blood is a non‐Newtonian fluid so the splatter patterns are more complex and more informative than splatter of paint or liquid fire accelerants. The dictionary covers a wide range of fingerprint identification methods that use a range of materials for enhancing fingerprints. DNA technology is covered but neither DNA profile (the preferred term) or DNA fingerprinting (considered too specific) are mentioned. Low copy number DNA is also not covered. There have been many improvements in DNA technology which allows profiles to be extracted from minute amounts of material and for mixed samples to be interpreted. These processes are the basis for many cold case crimes that are now being solved. A number of analytical methods are described and these include most of the widely used techniques. There are others techniques that are not included but which are used in forensic science.
These small criticisms illustrate that what is included in the dictionary includes anything that might turn up as evidence and forensic science will use whatever techniques are available to interpret that evidence. So there has to be some selection in making a dictionary for the subject. There are a fair number of illustrations. They are in black and white but they are clear enough for the information they contain to be seen. There are also some diagrams. I only found one entry that was wrong and this is for the Forensic Science Service (which closed at the end of March 2012). It only covered England and Wales, not the UK as a whole. And the Metropolitan Police laboratory with which it was combined was not the City of London police but the wider London police forces. The peculiarities of the division of responsibility for various legal and administrative functions, not just for the police, in the UK are complex. One point not exactly pertinent to this review but of interest to reference librarians is that as yet (April 2012) no mechanism for the continuation of the Forensic Science Service's public online database FORS has been proposed.
The various entries are understandable and easy to read. Terms in the dictionary are cross referred by using asterisks. Web links are indicated in the book and can be accessed from the dictionary's web site
The book ends with a list of abbreviations, a list of professional organizations, books for further reading, the electromagnetic spectrum, and an alphabetical list of elements. These are all useful things to have to hand. There is a list of key journals. This could be expanded to include some of the more specialist journals like the Journal of Forensic Identification and Journal of the Association of Firearms and Toolmark Examiners. Like the subject, the journals and textbooks of forensic science are wide ranging and at times surprising.
I have already suggested that this is a dictionary for general use. It will be of use to forensic scientists when considering cases with a wide range of evidence covering many specialities. The days of a scientist doing all the work on one case are long gone. The dictionary will be useful to those who use the evidence such as police and lawyers who need to know what information can be extracted from evidence and how that evidence can be interpreted. CSI enthusiasts, fiction authors, journalists and the general public will find this a good way into the world of forensic science.
