We are proud to announce our first forensics-themed workshop specifically for adults; our first topic will be forensic pathology, or the study of the causes of death. We will be offering two workshops each Tuesday evening, no matter which workshop you register for, you’ll be able to visit the museum for 30 minutes before and after your session.

• Forensic Pathology – April 13 at 6:30pm or at 8:00pm
• Blood Spatter – April 20 at 6:30pm or 8:00pm
• Ballistics – April 27 at 6:30pm or at 8:00pm

Seemed fitting to start with pathology, since the Vancouver Police Museum is housed in a building that was once the city morgue and autopsy facility (almost 15,000 autopsies were performed here). We also have an impressive collection of tools from that time, from head clamps to bone saws. This workshop will get up-close-and-personal with these tools, while discussing the process of an autopsy and associated investigation, from crime scene to funeral home.

(Additional workshops may be announced if these ones are successful…)

Also, please note that tickets will not be available by phone or in-person; we will only be selling tickets online. (Where you’ll also find more information about each session and its contents.)

Really, why should the kids have all the fun?

One of those most commonly used examples of “Showbiz Forensics” is the amazing power that “software” has to “enhance” an “image”. This video, that we found on YouTube this morning, helps show just how common this trick is:

(Thanks to http://dunk3d.tumblr.com/ for this!)

In real life, of course, forensic techniques like this don’t exist, or don’t work nearly the way they’re shown. Instead, most investigation involves really hard work, a strong intuition and a significant amount of deductive reasoning. And even when you have access to magical technology, sometimes the low-tech solution, combined with lots of hard work, beats the high-tech one. (But that makes bad TV.) You could spend hours trying to lift and identify a minuscule portion of a fingerprint on a drinking glass, or you could start by seeing who had a reservation for that table that night and interviewing eye-witnesses.

Next time you watch a forensics-themed TV show, be sure to pay attention to all the fantastic examples of “showbiz forensics”. Usually, it’s painfully funny. What’s your favourite example of impossible forensics?

ps. We’re doing a bunch of workshops for kids on the forensic sciences this Winter Break; if you’re an adult and want us to do forensics workshops for you, be sure to let us know.