The greatest advancements in forensic science over the coming decades will not necessarily be in technology, but instead through enhanced administrative practices and better collaboration with other agencies in our criminal justice system.  The key to success lies in a balanced, "asymmetric" approach to forensic science management where capacity gains are only made concurrently with efforts to control demand. 

In a traditional symmetric system, capacity is simply increased in response to growing demand. This is no longer acceptable because it fails to weed out casework that does not have value to our courts.  An asymmetric system seeks to control both capacity and demand, which ensures that taxpayer resources are not exhausted on low value work.  This new approach requires discipline, strong communication skills, and efforts to engage the criminal justice community with continuing education and information resources. 

At the most aggressive end of an asymmetric system, forensic science laboratories may opt to consider a variety of crime trends and law enforcement strategies when designing an appropriate system for delivering services.  For example, the concept of "Hot Spot Policing" has been previously reported by researchers in the U.S. Department of Justice as an effective tool for law enforcement professionals.  Hot Spot Policing involves the intense focusing of resources on high crime areas.  A forensic science laboratory taking a highly proactive and aggressive asymmetric approach may contribute heavily to the reduction of crime in that area by prioritizing cases from hot spots so that active criminals may be identified with immediacy.

Admittedly, this approach is divergent from traditional models of forensic science and may initially be criticized as inappropriately placing scientists in an investigative posture.  This, however, is not entirely true.  Asymmetric approaches to forensic science are driven primarily by forensic science managers, not forensic scientists at the bench.  In an asymmetric system, scientists are equally committed to quality and objectivity.  The major difference lies in how the evidence is prioritized and how forensic intelligence is gathered and reported to law enforcement professionals in the field.  The ultimate goal is to influence demand for forensic science services so that it does not overtake the resources made available to address it.  Capacity building for legitimate demand is proper and necessary.  Capacity building for illegitimate demand is not.