Newsday Sought Barket’s Expert Opinion on Making Labs More Effective When They Reopen

Newday reporters Kathleen Kerr and Andrew Strickler sought the opinion of criminal justice experts on the changes that would need to be made to improve the effectiveness of Nassau County’s crime lab, which was closed due to lab errors. National experts, including Bruce Barket, all agreed that a fix to the problem would require turning the crime lab into an independent agency staffed by science professionals subject to regular lab procedures audits. Barket pointed out that the lab “needs to be rebuilt from the ground up” and that testing should not be done by the police.