AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CRIME LABORATORY DIRECTORS ACCREDITATION SYSTEMS: COMPARING LEGACY AND INTERNATIONAL
AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CRIME LABORATORY DIRECTORS ACCREDITATION SYSTEMS: COMPARING LEGACY AND INTERNATIONAL
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Issue Date
2006
Authors
Black, Georgina M.
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Abstract
The American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors (ASCLD) is changing the format of their accreditation system. They are altering the basis of their program to be dependent on the International Organization of Standardizations ISO/IEC 17025:2005. ISO/IEC 17025 is used primarily in clinical laboratories to ensure that a basic level of quality is maintained throughout the testing cycle to produce a uniform product, but neither is it required to produce technically valid results, nor to make the product comparable to another laboratory’s product. The difficulty with the application of this system to crime laboratories is that there is an unstated requirement in the criminal justice system that all processes within crime laboratories must be comparable because they are considered in conjunction with the results when presented in court. This thesis will use surveys and a comparison between the Legacy and International programs to demonstrate possible difficulties that may arise when switching between these systems.