Abridged Literature Review - Essay Example

The examination of controlled substances is one of the fundamental tasks of forensic science in order to verify the presence of substances which are either regulated or prohibited by law. A forensic laboratory which performs such function is variously called as drug section, forensic chemistry laboratory, narcotic analysis laboratory and many more. Analysis of controlled substances involves either a botanical or chemical examination using a different series of tests. Botanical examination deals with identification of physical characteristics of controlled substances, while chemical examinations utilize wet chemicals and/or instruments to achieve identification of controlled substances.

Recent advances in this field includes utilization of cyanoacrylate fuming to facilitate visual detection of controlled substances in the fingerprint through the Raman spectra, chromatographic techniques in the detection and subsequent examination of psychoactive drugs (Day, Edwards, Dobrowski and Voice, 2004; . Fitsev, Blokhin and Budnikov, 2004). Ginzburg (in Joseph, 2001) maintained that fingerprinting is the best available system of identifying people in the late nineteenth century. Until this day and age, even with the emergence of other identification techniques, fingerprinting remains a useful and significant identity verifier.

The influx of computer technology offered excellent support to fingerprinting whether for identification or forensic purposes. Several studies revealed significant progress in the development of fingerprinting in forensic science, such as the development of an enhanced minutiae-extraction algorithm for an automatic identity-authentication system and a scalable multimedia fingerprinting forensics (Jain, Lin, Pankanti and Bolle, 1997; Lin, Zhao and Ray Liu, 2006). However, Saks and Koehler (2007) believe that legal and