Danica Ommen, Susan VanderPlas, and Steve Pierson
The Center for Statistics and Applications in Forensic Evidence, known as CSAFE, had its funding terminated May 31, a year before its second five-year contract was to end. The notification came from the National Institute of Statistics and Technology, which had funded CSAFE as a Center of Excellence since 2015 and had its fiscal year 2024 (FY24) budget cut 8% to $1.16 billion.
Funded by the National Institute of Statistics and Technology at $3.9 million annually, the cut is a blow to CSAFE’s work, which includes a research program and collaboration with and professional development for the forensic science community.
The research program includes 28 active projects involving more than 80 multidisciplinary researchers at 11 institutions and more than 40 graduate and undergraduate students. According to CSAFE, its researchers have published more than 100 articles in peer-reviewed journals. Their major accomplishments include a scientific basis for analyzing firearms, cartridges, handwriting, shoeprints, and digital evidence.
CSAFE brings its research to practitioners by testing and validating its tools with such entities as the US Secret Service, Houston Forensic Science Center, Kentucky State Police Central Forensic Laboratory, Miami-Dade Forensic Services Division, and US Army Criminal Investigation Laboratory.
The center’s education, training, and engagement are also extensive. More than 11,000 people have enrolled in its learning opportunities, including more than 100 webinars, workshops, educational courses, and exhibits. Further, with the Innocence Project, CSAFE established the Scientific Literacy Project to provide free online basic scientific training for public defenders. The project, for example, just announced a partnership with the North Carolina Indigent Defense Services, enrolling dozens of attorneys for its program.
The cut also terminates the application of research to forensic practice, which is the goal of CSAFE and has been building momentum. Prompted by President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and National Academies reports, courts have restricted the testimony examiners can offer. Recently, firearms testimony has been limited or excluded in state courts in Illinois and Maryland due to uncertainty in the error rates of subjective visual examinations.
CSAFE has developed algorithms that mimic examiner visual assessment in a reproducible, quantitative, and statistically validated method, and these algorithms can be tested, producing incredibly low error rates. They are ready to be transitioned to lab use, with open-source code and web tools designed for case work. Without continued funding, there is a risk that courts will exclude current methods with no replacement available to ensure firearms evidence can still be used reliably.
CSAFE researchers are active in supporting the development of forensic standards by participating in the National Institute of Statistics and Technology Organization of Scientific Area Committees, which updates and develops forensic science standards for US laboratories. Without the needed advancements in statistics as applied to these forensic disciplines, the standards risk stagnating or falling behind. Continued CSAFE funding ensures these researchers will continue working on forensics problems and updating the standards.
It sounds like NIST might’ve been asked to cut their budget and, in reviewing where their money is spent, identified some fat that could be trimmed. Most of the articles coming from CSAFE are opinion pieces denigrating forensics, not supporting it. The actual research that does appear to be coming out of CSAFE is either in collaboration with NIST scientists or is redundant with research already being conducted in-house by NIST. There is no need to spend $.78M on CSAFE when NIST can cut out the “middleman” and devote whatever amount of that money they don’t have to cut to the good work they are already doing in house.