PCAST report
Definition
The 2016 report by the US President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology that evaluated the foundational validity and validity as applied of several forensic feature-comparison disciplines. It concluded that DNA analysis, bite mark analysis, latent fingerprints, firearms, footwear, and hair required further empirical studies to establish error rates.
Related terms
- Foundational validity
- The requirement, articulated in the 2009 US National Academy of Sciences report and taken up by courts and reform bodies, that a...
- Likelihood ratio (LR)
- The ratio of two conditional probabilities: the probability of the observed evidence given the prosecution's hypothesis (same source), divided by the probability...
- Match probability
- The probability that a randomly selected person or object from the relevant population would produce evidence as similar as the crime-scene sample,...
- Rarity estimate
- A numerical statement of how uncommon a particular feature combination is in a reference population. Derived from frequency databases or empirical studies....
- Refractive index (RI)
- A physical property of glass measuring how much light bends as it passes through. RI is the primary discriminating characteristic used in...
Explained in
- Match Probabilities Beyond DNAThe 2016 report by the US President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology that evaluated the foundational validity and validity as applied of several...