The National Commission on Forensic Science and the Organization of Scientific Area Committees

In early 2014, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) launched the National Commission on Forensic Science (NCFS) and the Organization of Scientific Area Committees (OSAC) to aid efforts in strengthening forensic science in the United States. NCFS is a two-year renewable federal advisory committee to DOJ with a diverse set of stakeholder perspectives that provide views and policy recommendations to the Attorney General. The NIST-led OSAC effort is being established to provide leadership in developing discipline-specific standards of practice. Ultimately standards and guidelines that populate an OSAC registry will enable accreditation bodies to audit forensic science service providers to these discipline-specific forensic science standards of practice.