A big criticism that I have heard from "defund the police" folks is that a lot of police departments across the country have more money than sense and accountability. If you are inclined to believe this statement, it is inevitable that they are, in best case, swindled by hucksters selling snake oil, and in worst case, are dabbling in corruption to enrich themselves.

NIST apparently does some work in the field, although they don’t have oversight authority. They recently discovered that bite mark analysis is worthless: https://www.nist.gov/spo/forensic-science-program/bitemark-a...

No one, really, except for the judge (who has training in law, not science).

A common test for these methods is that they undergo peer review and are reasonably accepted.

Many of them DID pass peer review. They had papers written on how well they work.

Obviously something in that peer review process has (yet again) led us to junk science.