Criminalistics: An Introduction to Forensic Sciences, 8th edition

Richard Saferstein
About the Author

Richard Saferstein, Ph.D., retired in 1991 after serving 21 years as the Chief Forensic Scientist of the New Jersey State Police Laboratory, one of the largest crime laboratories in the United States. He currently acts as a consultant for attorneys and the media in the area of forensic science. During the O. J. Simpson trial, Dr. Saferstein provided extensive commentary on the forensic aspects of the case for the Rivera Live show, the E! television network, ABC radio and various radio talk shows. Dr. Saferstein holds degrees from the City College of New York and earned his doctorate degree in chemistry in 1970 from the City University of New York. From 1972 to 1991, he taught an introductory forensic science course in the criminal justice programs at the College of New Jersey and Ocean County College. These teaching experiences played an influential role in Dr. Saferstein's authorship in 1977 of the widely used introductory textbook Criminalistics: An Introduction to Forensic Science, currently in this eighth edition. Saferstein's basic philosophy in writing Criminalistics is to make forensic science understandable and meaningful to the non-science reader, while giving the reader an appreciation for the scientific principles that underlie the subject.

Dr. Saferstein presently teaches a course on the role of the expert witness in the courtroom at the law school of Widner University in Wilmington, Delaware. He has authored or co-authored more than 40 technical papers covering a variety of forensic topics. He has also edited the widely used professional reference books Forensic Science Handbook, Volumes I-III (Prentice Hall, 2002, 1988, 1993) dealing with important forensic science topics. Dr. Saferstein is a member of the American Chemical Society, the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, the Forensic Science Society of England, the Canadian Society of Forensic Scientists, the International Association for Identification, the Mid-Atlantic Association of Forensic Scientists, the Northeastern Association of Forensic Scientists, the Northwest Association of Forensic Scientists and the Society of Forensic Toxicologists.