THE FBI LABORATORY

摘要

takes a look at the new FBI lab, its new location, and the latest round of controversy surrounding it. Last spring, the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) laboratory was uprooted from the J. Edgar Hoover building in downtown Washington, D.C., and replanted in the heavily guarded, lush green sanctuary of the U.S. Marine Corps Base in Quantico, Va. The move represented more than a breath of fresh air for the lab; it symbolized the turning over of a new leaf and the chance to rebuild the lab's image following a controversial 1997 Office of the Inspector General (OIG) report. Before the new FBI lab's roots could even settle, however, the lab was faced with some weeds in its new Garden of Eden—concerns about its bullet lead analysis and peer review procedures. A subsequent report on these issues by the National Academies' National Research Council (NRC) prompted many in the forensic community to ask the million-dollar question, or rather, the