Post training seminar thoughts #1

The annual AFTE training seminar 2026 Baltimore as viewed from the back row.

Going to training is hard, especially now that federal grants that have been relied on for funding are starting to become unreliable. As forensics seems to be entering a post CSI-effect era, and departments continue to pull funding for other uses, in-house training is increasingly the sole source of training a new examiner may get. I have had the privilege to go to several seminars, being lucky enough to have administrators that fight for external training. Every year I go, I learn several facts or ideas that I am able to bring back to my co-workers, which improves the firearms and toolmarks unit, which improves the crime lab, which improves service to the customers (the citizens in this scenario). Every year I go, I always hear stories about forensic labs having to cut back as well, and more stories of forensic examiners trying to find ways to self-fund training.

Is there a problem with only using in-house training? In my mind this depends. In-house training can absolutely give examiners the basic skills they need to accomplish the core functions of the job. I think where this can become a problem is when multiple people get trained by one senior examiner, then one of those trained examiners train the next set of examiners as they were trained, and so on in a cycle. To me, this opens up a unit in a crime lab to issues of the telephone game effect and bias. Going to seminars and being able to interact with and discuss presentations with examiners from other labs and other countries forces me to confront my own training and experience. Working in the realm of science, and trying my best to embody scientific concepts, this challenging of my current practices is important. Science requires a constant challenging of what you think you know, or what the field thinks to be true. A cycle of continuous in-house trainings is the opposite of this challenging. Frequently, in-house training is the first step as well. Most new trainees are too new to have the knowledge or professional comfort to challenge what is being taught. This will lead to errors as new information and techniques will be missed. If a new manufacturing technique is tested and shown to be prone to sub-class characteristics, a presentation is generally the fastest way to get the information out. Articles take time to get through peer review and can be backlogged or locked behind a paywall. If no one in the unit goes to the presentation, they will be operating without this information until, hopefully, someone reads the article at a later time. During this time, the lab would be prone to error. Error in a lab means a loss of trust with the public and wasted tax payer dollars if the error results in a lawsuit. One lawsuit from a wrongful conviction costs more tax dollars than a career worth of annual seminar fees. But when it comes to funding, the short term thinking is winning. An administrator or politician can show reduced costs now, even though it may cost millions later.

I am very grateful I have had the opportunities to receive outside feedback and learning. It has undoubtedly made me a better firearm examiner. This trend of reduced funding for training is very concerning for this reason. This will, if allowed to continue, lead to worse forensic analysts and worse outcomes of justice for the public. An accurate forensic system is required for a trustworthy justice system. This should concern the public as a whole, and potentially make society rethink how our forensic system is funded and who gets to control that funding.