Forensic identification sciences are driven towards change by both scientific and legal forces. For a while, identification through forensic sciences had been considered to be of discernible distinctiveness. Nonetheless, these assumption has been proven to be inaccurate since there has been a growing body of evidence showing erroneous results from forensic sciences.

Accordingly, the law is edging towards a new approach to the permissibility of expert evidence in court. Similarly, an advance in science, particularly the advent of DNA typing is driving the change in forensic sciences towards a new controlled paradigm. Advances in science and changes in the law are driving forensic sciences from the erroneous study of comparing marks like handwriting and bite-marks to firmer evidence like DNA matches. Forensic evidence has the capacity to build or break a case, and it is vital for such evidence to be 100% foolproof.

Suspects initially convicted based on outmoded forensic evidence have been exonerated based on new evidence from novel forensic identification methods. The conventional methods of forensic identification techniques and the norms entailed in crime-fighting culture have proven that the most fraudulent and misleading testimonies have been the evidence accrued from forensic scientists. Thus, scientific advances seek to make DNA mapping the standard forensic identification technique.

On the other hand, changes in the law stipulate that basic research knowledge should be developed such that experts will only be required to inform the court about the relative weakness and strengths of their methods and notions. Obstacles exist all around the field of science but the future is bright if experts to replace old antiques with more defensible techniques that have probabilistic groundwork. The responsibility of the expert would only be to inform on how specific knowledge relates to individual cases.