Federal Bureau of Investigation Laboratory

DATE: Established on November 24, 1932

IDENTIFICATION: Central forensic science unit of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

SIGNIFICANCE: The Technical Laboratory established by the FBI in 1932 subsequently evolved into one of the world’s leading organizations in the development of the forensic sciences. The FBI Laboratory provides forensic services in support of federal, state, and local law-enforcement agencies across the United States as well as agencies in other nations.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the leading federal agency for both crime investigation and domestic intelligence within the United States, and the FBI Laboratory (commonly referred to as the FBI crime lab) is one of the agency’s most successful divisions. In addition to its law-enforcement responsibilities, the FBI assists federal, state, local, and international crime-fighting agencies, in large part through the services of its crime lab. Many state, local, and international agencies use the services of the FBI Laboratory free of charge. Long-term FBI director J. Edgar Hoover was responsible for inaugurating the practice of fingerprint analysis by the agency in 1924 and later for the founding of the Technical Laboratory, precursor to the modern FBI Laboratory, in 1932.

Development of Early Techniques

One of the earliest techniques employed by the FBI was fingerprint analysis. At the modern FBI crime lab, the Latent Print Operations Unit (LPOU) conducts friction ridge analysis, including the development and comparison of latent fingerprints, palm prints, and footprints. The LPOU reports its findings, provides expert testimony, and trains national and international law-enforcement personnel. The lab uses prints from a large database known as the Integrated (IAFIS) for comparison; IAFIS is maintained by the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Division. The Counterterrorism and Forensic Science Research Unit (CFSRU) of the lab conducts research into techniques that might improve fingerprint identification.

Another unit of the FBI crime lab that was established relatively early in the lab’s history is the Questioned Document Unit (QDU), which examines and compares evidence samples involving paper, including handwriting, typewriting, printing, erasures, alterations, indented writing, and obliterations. The work of the QDU includes matching torn or perforated edges of items (such as paper and postage stamps) and analyzing typewriter ribbons, images made by photocopiers and fax machines, works of graphic art, and plastic bags. The unit maintains an electronic database of images of ransom notes, letters, and other anonymous communications to assist analysts in comparing questioned documents from different cases with a common source. In addition, the duties of the unit have been expanded to include footprint and shoe print analysis, and it maintains an electronic database of sole and heel designs from shoe manufacturers to compare with prints and impressions left at crime scenes.

Other Forensic Services

Many of the forensic services conducted by the FBI crime lab concern the analysis of firearms, tool marks, and explosives. The Firearms-Toolmarks Unit (FTU) focuses on the forensic examination of firearms, ammunition components, tool marks, on victim or clothing, bullet trajectories, and other related to firearms and tool marks. FTU scientists compare lead and other metal fragments, shot wads, shot cups, and bullets removed from corpses at to each other and to firearms to establish links or exclude possible weapons. Scientists in this unit also compare the marks found at crime scenes and on victims’ bodies made by screwdrivers, knives, crowbars, saws, chains, human bone or cartilage, locks, bolts, and screens to try to determine the specific tools that made the marks. The Explosives Unit conducts chemical analyses to determine the types of explosives used in explosive or incendiary devices; this unit is also concerned with determining whether accelerants are present in the debris left by fires of suspicious origins.

Among the most important forensic science services conducted at the FBI lab are those involving (deoxyribonucleic acid) analysis. One of the lab’s two specialized DNA Analysis Units (DNAAU-1) examines DNA samples taken from evidence collected in various counterterrorism efforts as well as from crime scenes and victims of murders, sexual assaults, bank robberies, and other crimes. Samples of biological materials—such as blood, semen, and other body fluids—are subjected to DNA typing, and the results are compared with DNA analysis results from known samples from victims or potential suspects. This unit also processes DNA samples from convicted federal offenders, whose DNA profiles are then added to the database known as the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), which enables state and local law-enforcement agencies to search for possible matches to DNA profiles obtained locally.

Additional areas of forensic science practiced at the FBI crime lab include computer analysis and response, evidence response, forensic audio, forensic video, image analysis, investigative and prospective graphics, special photographic analysis, and analysis of structural design. The lab also conducts research into various areas of the forensic sciences and engages in training forensic scientists.

The FBI crime lab sometimes works in cooperation with other federal agencies, such as the US Coast Guard and Customs and Border Patrol. If criminal activity is suspected in aviation disasters or other transportation incidents, the FBI lab works with the National Transportation Safety Board. The FBI lab also provides services to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which has its own investigative power.

Successes and Failures

One of the early successes attributed to FBI forensic scientists was their role in establishing the evidence to convict Bruno Hauptmann, who was arrested in 1934 for the 1932 and of the infant son of American pioneer aviator Charles A. Lindbergh. This high-profile case dramatized the efforts of the FBI lab to solve crimes through crime scene analysis and led to the passage of federal legislation that gave the FBI over kidnap cases that cross state lines.

During World War II, the FBI crime lab played a key role in the joint code-breaking effort of the United States and Great Britain (the Venona project), which cracked Soviet diplomatic and intelligence codes. This participation led to the FBI’s pursuit of Americans operating as Soviet spies within the United States.

In 1963, when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, the local department originally had jurisdiction over the investigation because no federal was in place that criminalized the killing of a president. The newly sworn-in president, Lyndon B. Johnson , directed the FBI to take over investigation of the assassination, however, and the FBI lab became involved in forensic examination of the evidence. Controversy regarding assertions that evidence in that case was altered or destroyed tarnished the FBI in the eyes of many and led to a number of conspiracy theories.

Despite the FBI lab’s obvious successes, the pursuit of forensic science has at times suffered within the FBI because those who conduct forensic science for the agency are not considered special agents. For most of its history, the FBI has tended to favor special agents—the armed personnel who make arrests—heavily over other employees. Forensic science seemed likely to get a boost within the FBI in the late 1980s and early 1990s, as the apparent end of the Cold War reduced the threat of Soviet-inspired terrorism. During this period more than three hundred special agents transferred from counterintelligence work to work as adjuncts to local police departments, catching criminals who had crossed state lines to avoid capture—a federal offense. The post-Cold War decline in funding, however, limited the FBI’s work in forensic science. The FBI lab contributed a great deal to the development of the use of DNA analysis, but the lab’s fingerprint unit declined in quality. After numerous errors in fingerprint analysis were exposed and criminal cases had to be reopened, the lab faced the task of repairing its reputation for excellence.

Bibliography

Benedict, Jeff. No Bone Unturned: Inside the World of a Top Forensic Scientist and His Work on America’s Most Notorious Crimes and Disasters. New York: HarperCollins, 2003.

James, Stuart H., and Jon J. Nordby, eds. Forensic Science: An Introduction to Scientific and Investigative Techniques. 2d ed. Boca Raton, Fla.: CRC Press, 2005.

Powers, Richard Gid. Broken: The Troubled Past and Uncertain Future of the FBI. New York: Free Press, 2004.

Prouix, Michelle and Libby Stern. "FBI Surveys on Use of Geophysical Methods." FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin (LEB), US Department of Justice, 5 Dec. 2023, leb.fbi.gov/articles/additional-articles/fbi-laboratory-surveys-on-use-of-geophysical-methods. Accessed 14 Aug. 2024.

Romerstein, Herbert, and Eric Breindel. The Venona Secrets: Exposing Soviet Espionage and America’s Traitors. Washington, D.C.: Regnery, 2001.

Theoharis, Athan G. The FBI and American Democracy: A Brief Critical History. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004.

Tonry, Michael, ed. The Handbook of Crime and Punishment. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.