The Error in “Error Rate”: Why Error Rates Are So Needed,Yet So Elusive

Establishing error rates is crucial for knowing how well one is performing, determining whether improvement is needed, measuring whether interventions are effective, as well as for providing transparency. However, the flurry of activities in establishing error rates for the forensic sciences has largely overlooked some fundamental issues that make error rates a problematic construct and limit the ability to obtain a meaningful error rate. These include knowing the ground truth, establishing appropriate databases, determining what counts as an error, characterizing what is an acceptable error rate, ecological validity, and transparency within the adversarial legal system. Without addressing these practical and theoretical challenges, the very notion of a meaningful error rate is limited.