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Investigating identification disparities in forensic anthropology casework

Forensic anthropology is shifting to reflect on the impact of its practices within the criminal justice context in important ways. Here, we contribute to this essential work by examining how decedent demographics as well as estimations of biological profile components are related to identification t...

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Autores principales: Hughes, Cris, Yim, An-Di, Juarez, Chelsey, Servello, John, Thomas, Richard, Passalacqua, Nicholas, Soler, Angela
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10619877/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37910496
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0290302
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author Hughes, Cris
Yim, An-Di
Juarez, Chelsey
Servello, John
Thomas, Richard
Passalacqua, Nicholas
Soler, Angela
author_facet Hughes, Cris
Yim, An-Di
Juarez, Chelsey
Servello, John
Thomas, Richard
Passalacqua, Nicholas
Soler, Angela
author_sort Hughes, Cris
collection PubMed
description Forensic anthropology is shifting to reflect on the impact of its practices within the criminal justice context in important ways. Here, we contribute to this essential work by examining how decedent demographics as well as estimations of biological profile components are related to identification trends in forensic anthropology cases. The study uses data from more than 1,200 identified and unidentified forensic anthropology cases from three agencies (together representing a nation-wide sample). We found the following: i) multivariate analyses indicated that decedent sex, age, and race and/or ethnicity are not related to case identification rates in the pooled United States sample, ii) when identification rate differences do occur, they appear to be smaller effects, more agency-specific, and/or related to the context of a particular agency, iii) for the agency-specific sample with available data, there was no consistent evidence for a discrepancy in the duration of an identification investigation based on a decedent’s sex, age, or race and/or ethnicity, iv) forensic anthropological estimations of sex, age, and ancestry can improve the odds of identification for decedents, although these are small effects, and v) reporting an ancestry estimation does not appear to impact decedent race representation among resolved unidentified person cases. Although previous studies have identified demographic discrepancies in other areas of the criminal justice system, the results presented here suggest that decedent demographic estimation practices by forensic anthropologists in general do not appear to be related to discrepancies in identification trends, but more research is needed to examine whether these findings hold. Contextual factors and practices specific to each investigative agency likely contribute to identification trends.
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spelling pubmed-106198772023-11-02 Investigating identification disparities in forensic anthropology casework Hughes, Cris Yim, An-Di Juarez, Chelsey Servello, John Thomas, Richard Passalacqua, Nicholas Soler, Angela PLoS One Research Article Forensic anthropology is shifting to reflect on the impact of its practices within the criminal justice context in important ways. Here, we contribute to this essential work by examining how decedent demographics as well as estimations of biological profile components are related to identification trends in forensic anthropology cases. The study uses data from more than 1,200 identified and unidentified forensic anthropology cases from three agencies (together representing a nation-wide sample). We found the following: i) multivariate analyses indicated that decedent sex, age, and race and/or ethnicity are not related to case identification rates in the pooled United States sample, ii) when identification rate differences do occur, they appear to be smaller effects, more agency-specific, and/or related to the context of a particular agency, iii) for the agency-specific sample with available data, there was no consistent evidence for a discrepancy in the duration of an identification investigation based on a decedent’s sex, age, or race and/or ethnicity, iv) forensic anthropological estimations of sex, age, and ancestry can improve the odds of identification for decedents, although these are small effects, and v) reporting an ancestry estimation does not appear to impact decedent race representation among resolved unidentified person cases. Although previous studies have identified demographic discrepancies in other areas of the criminal justice system, the results presented here suggest that decedent demographic estimation practices by forensic anthropologists in general do not appear to be related to discrepancies in identification trends, but more research is needed to examine whether these findings hold. Contextual factors and practices specific to each investigative agency likely contribute to identification trends. Public Library of Science 2023-11-01 /pmc/articles/PMC10619877/ /pubmed/37910496 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0290302 Text en https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/This is an open access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) public domain dedication.
spellingShingle Research Article
Hughes, Cris
Yim, An-Di
Juarez, Chelsey
Servello, John
Thomas, Richard
Passalacqua, Nicholas
Soler, Angela
Investigating identification disparities in forensic anthropology casework
title Investigating identification disparities in forensic anthropology casework
title_full Investigating identification disparities in forensic anthropology casework
title_fullStr Investigating identification disparities in forensic anthropology casework
title_full_unstemmed Investigating identification disparities in forensic anthropology casework
title_short Investigating identification disparities in forensic anthropology casework
title_sort investigating identification disparities in forensic anthropology casework
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10619877/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37910496
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0290302
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