The word forensic means “public” in Latin and “forum” in French. Commonly, forensic scientists define their field as the application of the methods of the natural and physical sciences to matters of civil and criminal law (Saks, 2005).
Criminalistics
Criminalistics has the largest membership in the American Academy of Forensic Sciences and the most people employed in the field. It can be defined as the application of scientific methods to the recognition, collection, identification, and comparison of physical evidence generated by criminal or illegal civil activity. It also involves the reconstruction of these events by evaluation of the physical ...