Learn Practical Skills At Home

Each of your comprehensive lessons includes easy-to-follow instructions that make every forensic science concept and technique come alive for you – step by fascinating step. Your reading assignments are challenging and stimulating at the same time. A few clicks at your keyboard allow you to:

• Enjoy interactive, web-based instructional enhancements that engage students in the learning process
• Perform practice exercises and take exams online – and receive grades and helpful feedback immediately
• Move on to your next lesson and exam without delay

Choose our Correspondence (Print-based) study option if you don’t have a computer. Or choose our Online (Web-enhanced) study option for fast-track training at your PC. It’s the smart way to learn – and you’ll still receive reading assignments and study materials by mail!.

Enroll online or call 1-800-535-1613 to speak with an Admission Advisor!

Meet Your Instructor

Joe Andrews is the Regional Lab Manager of the Mississippi Crime Laboratory in Jackson, Mississippi. With more than 25 years of experience in forensics, he has assisted federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies in the collection and preservation of evidence and has presented expert testimony in court. Mr. Andrews has a B.S. in Forensic Science from the University of Mississippi.

He, along with our staff of caring, courteous career educators, will give you careful guidance through your studies. If you have questions or need help along the way, just write, call, fax or E-mail us 24 hours a day. We'll give you prompt, personal assistance.

What You’ll Learn Lesson By Lesson

Lesson 1: The Scene of the Crime. Processing and photographing a crime scene; types of evidence; collecting, cataloging and preserving evidence; instruments comprising the crime scene kit; death investigations; distinguishing the cause of death; the role of pathologists; estimating time of death based on stages of decomposition; the autopsy; how coroners conduct and gather evidence in the autopsy process.

Lesson 2: Identifications. Identifying homicide victims; examining dental features, fingerprints, blood-type and DNA; technological advances in DNA analysis; the four basic types of forensic science; techniques for manipulating and analyzing physical images; trace evidence analysis; crime lab instruments and their use in examining hair, fibers, glass, dust and more; serology; using blood type, DNA and semen evidence to solve crimes; forms of print analysis.

Lesson 3: Connecting Evidence to Events. Using science, intuition, induction, deduction and abduction to make crime scene conclusions; toxicology testing; reconstructing a crime scene; pattern evidence; interpreting blood spatter patterns; evaluating eyewitness accounts; criminal logic; profiling: its use and misuse in the science of victimology.

Lesson 4: Explaining the Crime. Deceptive tactics used by criminals to stage crime scenes, plant misleading evidence and lead investigators in the wrong direction; interrogation methods and instruments such as lie detectors, voiceprint analysis and stress evaluators; polygraph results; feigning mental illness, malingering and other criminal tactics; solving forensic puzzles; arson and bomb investigations; determining the true causes of fires; tracing the origin of explosives through chemical analysis; following paper trails to track down criminals.

Lesson 5: From Crime Scene to Crime Lab. The development of forensic science; the five basic crime lab functions: physical science, biology, firearms analysis, document analysis and photographic analysis; analytical and scientific skills of the forensic scientist; how investigators process, secure, isolate and record crime scene evidence using a variety of sophisticated techniques; protocols for collecting various kinds of evidence.

Lesson 6: Physical Evidence, Glass and Soil. Identifying and comparing physical and chemical properties of the most common types of physical evidence; interacting with medical examiners, criminalists and law enforcement personnel to recover and analyze crime scene evidence; an overview of the metric system; forensic characteristics of glass and soil; methods to collect and preserve glass fragment and soil evidence.

Lesson 7: Organic and Inorganic Analysis. Techniques and instruments for examining organic evidence; theories and principles of chromatography, spectrophotometry and mass spectrometry; measurement and analysis tools; analyzing tools, explosives and poisons to gather inorganic evidence; how to determine the elemental composition of materials; atomic absorption spectrophotometry and x-ray diffraction.

Lesson 8: Microscopes, Hair, Fibers and Paint. Using the compound, comparison, stereoscopic, polarizing and scanning electron microscopes; comparative analysis of microscopic evidence; the microspectrophotometer; identifying and analyzing hair, fiber and paint particles; extracting evidence from automotive paint; analyzing paint particles in the laboratory.

Lesson 9: Drugs and Forensic Toxicology. The psychological and physical factors contributing to drug dependence; characteristics of opiates, hallucinogens, depressants, stimulants, anabolic steroids and the so called “club drugs”; drug identification testing procedures; collecting and preserving drug evidence; measuring alcohol in the blood system; breath testers and gas chromatography tests; interpretative conclusions reached as a result of drug tests.

Lesson 10: Forensic Serology and DNA. Blood testing and typing; immunoassay techniques; analyzing blood stains and stain patterns; locating, collecting and preserving blood evidence; semen analysis in rape and other sexually related crimes; the structural components of DNA; base pairing, replication and polymerase chain reaction; the relation of DNA to bodily functions; DNA analysis.

Lesson 11: Fire and Firearms. Arson and explosion investigations; using the gas chromatograph to trace chemical composition and origin of materials; the nature of explosives; combing bomb sites; firearms identification; tool marks; analyzing bullets, gunpowder residue and serial numbers; extracting evidence from shoe and tire marks and other impressions; collecting, preserving and analyzing residues, minute particles and other impressions as evidence.

Lesson 12: Fingerprints; Document Examination. The three classes of fingerprints as defined by patterns of loops, whirls and arches; the automated fingerprint identification system; methods used to detect fingerprints; techniques for preserving fingerprints; document and voice examination; handwriting analysis and comparisons; methods used to compare copiers, printers and fax machines; analyzing alterations, erasures and virtual obliteration of documents; analyzing voice data with the sound spectrograph.

Lesson 13: Forensic Science Today and Tomorrow. The impact of the Internet on forensic science; global networks and databases; researching forensic science on the Web; the Internet as a research tool in criminal investigations; the future of forensic science; the broadening applications of forensic methodology as an integral component of investigation.