Criminalistics

The American Academy of Forensic Sciences Criminalistics section, the largest forensic discipline group in this atlas: firearms and toolmark examination, latent print and pattern comparison, trace evidence, crime scene reconstruction and bloodstain pattern interpretation, drug and general chemistry, and geological trace comparison, all applying physical and chemical comparison methods directly at or from the scene. Belongs here: any discipline whose core method is comparing physical marks, materials or scene evidence rather than biological material, digital data or documents. Does not belong here: disciplines centered on biological material and its genetic or pathological analysis, grouped under Pathology and Biology; on digital devices and media, grouped under Digital and Multimedia Sciences; or on documents, handwriting and language, grouped under Questioned Documents. This subcategory groups the entity named Criminalistics itself alongside its narrower sibling disciplines, a genuine distinction between the broad AAFS section and the specific disciplines that comprise it, not a naming collision.