History of the Center
Immediately after the end of World War II, criminal investigations were under the jurisdiction of the public prosecutor's office. The public prosecutor at the time repeatedly emphasized the need for a scientific approach to combating crime, believing that such an approach would ensure greater efficiency, objectivity, and humanity in establishing facts.
Although the annual reports of the Investigation Department of the Public Prosecutor's Office of Croatia contained elaborations of these ideas, their implementation was limited due to the lack of clear methodological and operational solutions. With the exclusion of the prosecutor's office from the direct management of investigations, and due to an insufficient number of inadequately trained investigative judges, the main burden of investigations (including crime scene investigations) was transferred to the Internal Affairs Service, which required reorganization and additional resources.
In the autumn of 1952, the then Ministry of Internal Affairs of the People's Republic of Croatia recognized the need to approach crime systematically and scientifically, and a decision was made to establish the Office for Criminological Examinations. The establishment was entrusted to Dr. Tomislav Marković.
The task of the newly founded Office was to create conditions for the introduction of modern criminalistic methods and the systematic examination of crime phenomena with the aim of more effectively combating it.
Key Years of Development
Although the annual reports of the Investigation Department of the Public Prosecutor's Office of Croatia contained elaborations of these ideas, their implementation was limited due to the lack of clear methodological and operational solutions. With the exclusion of the prosecutor's office from the direct management of investigations, and due to an insufficient number of inadequately trained investigative judges, the main burden of investigations (including crime scene investigations) was transferred to the Internal Affairs Service, which required reorganization and additional resources.
In the autumn of 1952, the then Ministry of Internal Affairs of the People's Republic of Croatia recognized the need to approach crime systematically and scientifically, and a decision was made to establish the Office for Criminological Examinations. The establishment was entrusted to Dr. Tomislav Marković.
The task of the newly founded Office was to create conditions for the introduction of modern criminalistic methods and the systematic examination of crime phenomena with the aim of more effectively combating it.
Key Years of Development
- January 1, 1953: The Office for Criminological Examinations was formally established as an independent unit within the State Secretariat for Internal Affairs of the PR of Croatia. It was the first specialized office for forensic expert evaluations and criminological research in the former Yugoslavia.
- 1959: A Decree on the organization and operation of the State Secretariat for Internal Affairs (DSUP) was passed, regulating the status of the Office in Articles 47-49.
- 1967: The Republic Law on Internal Affairs of the Socialist Republic of Croatia (Article 16) changed the status of the Office, which became the Institute for Criminal Forensics and Criminological Research. The Institute operated as an independent working and self-managed unit, with its tasks defined by regulations published in the Official Gazette (Narodne novine, No. 9/1969). The Institute's headquarters were at Runjaninova 2, Zagreb.
- Late 1980s: The Institute became the Center for Criminal Forensics and Examinations.
- 1991-1995: During the Homeland War, the Center's experts were actively involved in documenting and providing expert analysis of war crimes. The Center's collection still preserves the remains of the aerial rocket fired at the Banski Dvori (Government House) and parts of the EC monitor mission helicopter shot down near Novi Marof, which were examined by the Center's specialists.
- 1997: The Center moved to a new building in Kustošija and changed its name to the Centar za kriminalistička vještačenja „Ivan Vučetić“(eng. Forensic Science Centre "Ivan Vučetić".
- 1998: The Center became a full member of ENFSI (European Network of Forensic Science Institutes), the network of national forensic science institutes in Europe.
- 2008: The Center received its current name: Centar za forenzična ispitivanja, istraživanja i vještačenja „Ivan Vučetić“ (in English it remains "Forensic Science Centre “Ivan Vučetić")
- 2009: The Center became a teaching and scientific base for the University of Split.
- 2010: The Center's laboratories became accredited according to the HRN EN ISO/IEC 17025:2007 standard.
- 2015: The Center became a teaching and scientific base for the University of Zagreb.
- 2018: The Center was entered into the List of Legal Entities for Performing Judicial Expert Evaluations at the County Court in Zagreb.
- 2019: It received a license to perform scientific activities in the field of biomedicine and health and signed a cooperation agreement with the Ruđer Bošković Institute.
- 2021: The Center successfully underwent re-accreditation in accordance with the requirements of the new HRN EN ISO/IEC 17025:2017 standard
A Name Carrying a Legacy
The Center proudly bears the name of Ivan Vučetić, a Croat who, in 1891, while working for the Argentine police, was the first in the world to establish a ten-finger dactyloscopic identification system. This system, known as Vucetichissimo, is the foundation of modern fingerprinting and is applied worldwide.