Science and Justice 50 (2010) 4–7

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Science and Justice

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Shaping forensic science innovation☆

1. Introduction

I address today's meeting as a guest. I am a guest in the sense thatmy disciplinary background in sociology separates me from most oftoday's participants who are trained in one or several of the naturalsciences as well as in the forensic applications of those fields ofinquiry. I am trained only in the ways of a single social science,although a science which is intensely ambitious in its efforts todescribe and explain what it is that makes social life – of all kinds, inall places and at all levels, from the personal through the institutionaland the societal to the global – the varied, complex, but orderlyachievement that it is. The inevitable corollary of my own sociologicalsensibility is that I risk the rejection of this audience with over-eagerreminders of the necessity to take note of the ways in which allscientific and technological achievements are profoundly socialenterprises whose nature and significance can be understood onlyby reference to their varied internal histories, and to the wider socio-cultural conceptions and aggregations within which these historiesare located.1 However, despite this danger, and our many disciplinarydifferences, I also like to think that I share sufficient common interestswith all others who have chosen to attend this conference to justifymy status as invited guest rather than that of an unwelcome stranger.

Amongst these common interests are two in particular. The first, aconcern more fully to understand the rationale for, and nature of, theheterogeneous character of forensic science practice and the forcesshaping both its routine and exceptional forms. The second, anambition to specify with increasing accuracy the actual and potentialcontribution of forensic science to criminal justice processes withinthe States of the European Union and beyond.

It is my contention that the successful pursuit of these, along withother such, interests depends on the ability of practitioners andresearchers to supplement knowledge of natural science substanceand reasoning with a range of theoretical considerations andmethodological resources drawn from the humanities and the socialsciences. We need to be willing to draw on these supplements if weare to analyse properly the character and role of the varying scientificassumptions which underpin forensic science reasoning, and which inturn inform credible and serviceable forensic science practice.We alsoneed such interdisciplinary collaborations to inform the properscrutiny of the ambitions and achievements of those who promise,

☆ Paper presented at 5th Triennial Conference of the European Academy of ForensicScience, Glasgow, 8–11 September 2009.

1 Key texts which make this argument include: S. Shapin & S. Schaffer (1985), Le-viathan and the Air Pump. Princeton: Princeton University Press; S. Jasanoff, G. Markle, J.Peterson & T. Pinch (eds) (1994), Handbook of Science and Technology Studies. BeverlyHills: Sage; W. Bijker, T. Hughes & T. Pinch (eds) (1987), The Social Construction ofTechnological Systems. Cambridge: MIT Press; P. Galison (2003), Einstein's Clocks,Poincaré's Maps: Empires of Time. London: Sceptre.

doi:10.1016/j.scijus.2010.01.001

develop promote, and deploy, the increasing number of technologicalinnovations that jostle one other for attention in the contemporaryforensic agora. Finally, the successful evaluation of the effects(including the effectiveness) of the investigative and judicial uses offorensic practice is impossible without the systematic study of socialand organisational aspects of its delivery and use, alongside questionsof its scientific adequacy and technological capability.

In responding to the particular theme chosen for this triennialconference, of knowledge exchange, I further assert that academicallyinformed explorations of all of these issues should be designed andcarried out in close collaboration with both those who produce andthosewho use forensic science intelligence and evidence to support thework of criminal investigation, advocacy, and judicial deliberation.Whilst thismay seemonly to state the obvious, I do it to in order tomakeclear that the successful achievement of these cognitive and practicalambitions requires commitment to a model of knowledge exchangewhich goes beyond the earlier and popular notions of ‘knowledgetransfer’ commonly found in recent work on science and its social andeconomic uses. Behind such a notion of knowledge transfer lay a modelof natural science knowledge and technology development in whichUniversity-based fundamental science underpins the dissemination ofproven verities to be taken up and ‘applied’ by state and commercialproviders of techno-science services and products, subsequently to beconsumed by the end- users of these resources.

This now seems an outdated model and, as I shall explain in amoment, I think we need a better understanding of both the push andpull factors which shape current scientific knowledge production,including forensic science knowledge production, knowledge which itis increasingly difficult to categorise as either ‘pure’ or ‘applied’. Thework of a small group of scholars who have outlined the lineamentsof what they have called ‘Mode 2’ knowledge production, provideinsights that we can apply without difficulty to thinking about the kindof social structures and processes that are relevant to the productionand consumption of contemporary science and technology in general,and contemporary forensic science and technology in particular.2 Thedistinctive features of Mode 2 knowledge production are most easilygraspedwhen contrastedwith the previously dominant form (Mode 1).This earlier modality was largely based on the existence of long-standing academic disciplines and was achieved largely in eliteuniversities connected with key government agencies without regardto the possibility or relevance of downstream applications bycommercial or other actors. Where Mode 1 was disciplinary, Mode 2is transdisciplinary; where Mode 1 was intellectually, or ‘curiosity’

2 The key references here are: M. Gibbons, C. Limoges, H. Nowotny, S. Schwartzman,P. Scott & M. Trow (1994), The New Production of Knowledge. London: Sage; H.Nowotny, P. Scott & M. Gibbons (2001), Re-Thinking Science: Knowledge and the Publicin an Age of Uncertanty. Oxford: Polity.

4 M. Borup, N. Brown, K Konrad, & H. Van Lente (2006), The sociology ofexpectations in science and technology, Technology Analysis and Strategic Management18:285–98.

5 See for example: N. Brown and M. Michael (2003), A sociology of expectations:retrospecting prospects and prospecting retrospects, Technology Analysis and StrategicManagement 15:3–18; N. Brown, and A. Kraft (2006), Blood ties: banking the stem cell

5Shaping forensic science innovation

driven, Mode 2 is problem driven; where the production of Mode 1knowledge was concentrated in a small number of places, Mode 2production is more widely distributed; and where Mode 1 producersworked together in relatively stable groups over long periods of time,Mode 2 producers now work together in more transient and morepermeable groupings which have much shorter lives. Certainly thespecific production of forensic science knowledge and innovation verymuch resembles the properties of Mode 2 knowledge in general asdescribed by Gibbons and his colleagues.

In addition, when we move to consider not just how forensictechno-science is produced, but how it is used in practice (and howthese practical uses do, and should, shape the production ofinnovations) we need both to draw on and elucidate the explicit andtacit knowledge of forensic service and product providers andconsumers, knowledge that has hardly ever been used to inform, ormade the subject of, prior academic research on the effectiveness ofthe deployment of science and technology, especially in the forensicdomain. We need to understand how that knowledge is deployed inthe selection and utilisation of specific forensic technologies, and wehave to take account of theways inwhich a variety of kinds of informaland unexplicated mundane cognitive and social resources are used toinform the actions of individuals who carry out field and laboratoryforensic science.3

2. Shaping technological innovation

Today there circulate countless rhetorical endorsements of the claimthat science and technology are constitutive features of contemporarysocial life. This claim of course has a long history, being anexemplification of a long-term social process of whatMaxWeber called‘rationalisation’ in which both traditional and charismatic forms ofauthority based on convention or revelation, are replaced by reason,calculation and the logically structured pursuit of personal andcollective interests. Recent history has, however seen an intensificationof this process (visible, for example, in the use of descriptive terms likethe ‘knowledge society’) in which cognitive power, especially thecognitive power of scientific reason, is seen as a primary productiveresource. Here then science occupies the privileged position accorded tolabour and capital as such resources, and accordingly, successfulinnovation in science and its technological derivatives is seen as theengine of economic activity in advanced industrial societies. In turn, theacceptance of this assertion has given rise to a bewildering number ofgovernmental and other strategies for scientific and technologicalinnovation in awidevariety of social domains from telecommunicationsto food production.

The application of these ideas to forensic science is visible in severalrecent documents and programmes ofwork including the HomeOfficeScience and Innovation Strategy, The United Kingdom Security andCounter-Terrorism Science and Innovation Strategy, and the NationalPolicing Improvement Agency National Police Forensics Strategy. Mysociological frame of reference encourages me to pay particularattention to the range of presuppositions, expectations, hopes andfears that inform the production of such strategies as well as toconsider the extent towhich they successfully shape the activities thatthey seek to engender. Two recurrent features of such strategies seemespecially important to me, and worthy of some brief comments.

The first is that they tend to share – for the reason I have alreadysuggested – an underlying utopian vision of the capacity of science andtechnology to deliver the economic and social goods thought desirablein contemporary societies. When this vision is applied to the socialgood of ‘crime control’, then it may be asserted that the successful

3 There is very little published work in this area. A singular exception is a series ofrecently published papers by Doak. See for example: S. Doak & D. Assimakopoulos(2007), ‘How Forensic Scientists Learn to Investigate Cases in Practice’. R&D Manage-ment 37: 113–122.

application of science is capable of increasing the capacity of the policeto detect crime, and of the courts to convict offenders. In turn, claims-makers may argue that the certainty of detection will, or does, reduceoffending, and as this virtuous cycle is amplified, growing confidence isachieved in the capacity of the state to secure the safety of its citizens.In such instances of scientific, commercial andmoral entrepreneurshipwe find much of sociological interest. At the very least they exemplifythe significance of social expectations in the shaping of forensicinnovation. As Borup and others have suggested,4 ‘imaginings,expectations and visions’ drive technological innovation by providinganticipated legitimation aswell as encouraging the investment of timeand money by potential developers, and there is already a body ofscholarship which has begun to investigate the workings of suchexpectations.5 Within that body of work, efforts have been made toexamine the ways in which the elaboration of expectations – amongstnetworks of users, policy makers, investors and producers – is one ofthe ways in which such networks are formed and their boundariesmaintained. Another interest has been in the temporal ordering ofexpectation, in particular, the common occurrence of ‘alternatingcycles of hype and disappointment’, cycles which often become part ofthe forgotten history of technology promises. Finally, a third focus ofinterest has been the ways in which expectations vary not over time,but across stakeholders and other aggregates, so that for someactors inthe innovation process, technological anomalies, uncertainties andinstabilities are easily visible and highly relevant, whilst othersmay beblind to such uncertainties.

At this point, I can only borrow from these authors some of thequestions that they ask about the dynamics of expectations in the hopethat by asking them within our common field of interest – forensicscience – we can further illuminate the role of these rhetoricalresources in shaping significant innovations. In particular we shouldconsider how particular advocates have sought to shape practitionerand user expectations as well as how public expectations have beenformed and reformed in the course of the highs and lows of forensicscience credibility over recent decades. How have cycles of ‘hype’ anddisenchantment been instantiated within particular domains offorensic science? How have the successes and failures of innovationin one domain affected the standing of other domains?We should alsothink about how the particular configurations of forensic scienceexpectations do or do not fit with those of policing in particular, and ofthe role of the state in securing social order in general. How does thesuccess of innovations relating to crime detection affect those thatrelate to other security concerns, and vice versa? How too (followingBorup, 2006), should we think of feeding back what we learn from ananalysis of existing expectations into the future dynamics of forensicscience innovation in order to avoid the worst excesses of the cycles ofpromise and failure that can disadvantage the reputation of forensicscience in general?

The second feature of interest to me is how these kinds of strategicdocuments imagine any social science contribution to the shaping of thekinds of innovationswithwhich they are concerned. Here the dominanttropes are references to social context (defined often as the social issuesand problems to which technological resources and solutions are to beapplied), social barriers (as intellectual, organisational or societal

promise, Technology Analysis and Strategic Management 18:313–27; A.K. Martin and E.A.Whitley (2007), Managing public expectations of technological systems: a case study ofa problematic government project, Spontaneous Generations 1:67–77; R.Q. VanMerkerkand D.K.R. Robinson (2006), Characterizing the emergence of a technological field:expectations, agendas and networks in Lab-on-a-chip technologies, Technology Analysisand Strategic Management 18:411–28.

6 Shaping forensic science innovation

features which prevent or limit technological success) or ‘errors andbias’ (as non-scientific irritants to theproductionof truthandobjectivityin the application of any particular scientific technique by real indi-viduals in practical contexts). However, the more general possibility –

that the sociological investigation of trajectories of innovation may-throw light on what innovations succeed and how, as well as how anysuch innovations are shaped during the course of their introduction —

are not considered by the authors of such documents.While there is insufficient time to describe the details of some

studies that have done just this in the examination of the careers ofspecific forensic technologies, I should at least draw attention to threerecent instances of social science scholarship that should be of interestto this audience. Three recent books, by Lynch et.al., Aronson, andGerlach have been especially concerned with how forensic geneticinnovations have been shaped by the varying interests and knowl-edges of judicial, commercial, policing, and policy actors.6 Each studyexamined the complex and contested trajectories that have markedthe last 25 years or so of work in this field. The social and intellectualhistories that they provide give a sense of the complexity of how suchinnovations were shaped by a variety of political, legal, and com-mercial forces as well as by some unanticipated events. They outlinethe interplay of judicial, legislative and scientific priorities in thedevelopment of these forensic technologies and show they ways inwhich seeming stabilisation (albeit perhaps temporarily) has beenachieved in the deployment and acceptance of these resources. Inmany ways they provide exemplary instances of what a sociologicallyinformed examination of the forensic science innovation process mayoffer to those who want to grasp its lineaments.

3. Social and organisational innovation

I have just briefly alluded to some sociological studies which havetried tomap the trajectories of particular forensic science innovations.Only by undertaking further such studies of a wider array of forensicdisciplines, can we advance beyond the rhetorical imaginings of thevarious strategies for (forensic) science and innovation to which Ihave already referred. However, thus far, studies have been limited totwo technologies (DNA profiling and fingerprint comparison) andlargely to an examination of one element in the social process inwhich generic natural science knowledge comes to shape particularforensic techno-science practices.7

To explain what I mean here, it may be useful to offer a comparisonwith work on the social processes by which medical innovations areshaped and realised. Recent interest in the process of innovation inmedical practice has crystallized around the notion of the ‘translation’of biomedical knowledge into clinical practice. In this domain it hasbecome commonplace to distinguish two different phases of suchtranslations. In the first phase, ‘bench’ science is translated intohuman clinical research, usually via clinical trials, sometimessupplemented by observational studies. The focus of stakeholders atthis stage is on the ‘efficacy’ of such innovations — in other wordswhether or not they are capable of giving the kinds of results theypromised, albeit it in closely controlled experimental contexts. It isthis phase on which the sociological studies I have referred to earlierhave largely focussed, and it is also this phase which has been thetarget of almost all of the state funding of forensic science research

6 M. Lynch, S.Cole, R. McNally and K. Jordan (2008), Truth Machine: The ContentiousHistory of DNA Fingerprinting. Chicago: Chicago University Press; J.D. Aronson (2007),Witness: Science, Law and Controversy in the Making of DNA Profiling. New Brunswick,NJ: Rutgers University Press; N. Gerlach (2004), The Genetic Imaginary: DNA in theCanadian Criminal Justice System. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

7 I set aside here the fact that there are many current arguments concerning thecredibility of the claims of fingerprint comparison to be based on a secure foundationof scientific knowledge and practice. Similar arguments can be made (and are made inthe recent US NRC Report) about a range of other claims in particular forensicdomains.

funnelled through the Research Councils as well as through severalimportant European Union science funding initiatives.

However, contemporary biomedical research also involves asecond translational phase, a phase in which innovations in the formof newdrugs or other newmedical interventions that have been testedin trials, are introduced into clinical practice. As this intricate socialprocess unfolds, questions of the efficacy of interventions andtreatments central to the context of clinical trials are replaced bymore difficult questions of the effectiveness of their uses in practicalcircumstances that are more variable and more complex. What atechnique or intervention is capable of doing, givesway to consideringwhat users want, what theywill accept, and how theywill make use ofthe capabilities presented to them. In medicine this has beencharacterised by Lawrence W. Green as ‘delivering the right care tothe right patient at the right time.’ In a series of influential papers,Green has done much to clarify the preoccupations of this secondphase of translational research.8 In particular it is concerned with theproduction of evidence about concrete health practices, focussing onthe social dynamics relevant to theways inwhich doctors and patientsinteract with whatever treatment innovations relevant to individualcases become available.

This focus – on how technologies are used in practice, and withwhat effects on the treatment of patients – can easily be transposedinto the forensic context. This simply requires moving on from aconsideration of what technologies and techniques can do, to thequestion of how they are used, bywhom,when, andwithwhat effects.It is a matter of identifying who are the relevant practice actors (CSIs,SIOs, SSMs, Reporting Officers, etc) considering their relevancies,modes of reasoning and the combinatorial tolerances of thesefeatures. It is also a matter of examining the range of social andcollaborative devices that make it possible to knit together the strandsof work carried out by these practitioners in order to see how theirdiffering styles of reasoning and distinct professional habituses arebrought together in the course of criminal investigations. In particular,what happens in briefs, debriefs, the construction of forensicstrategies, the production and reception of expert reports, and soon.Whilst Evett, Jackson and others have already done excellent workon how forensic reasoning should be formulated, expressed andcommunicated, there have been no empirical studies of the receptionand uses of such reasoning by investigators or others involved in thecriminal process.

However, if wewant to research these kinds of issues in an effort toproduce detailed practice-based evidence on the significance offorensic science innovations, it is worth raising some methodologicalquestions about how such research might proceed. Following Greenagain, it seems unhelpful to assume that only experimental or quasi-experimental designs should be deployed for such work. Where suchmethods have been used (e.g. in Roman et al (2008), The DNA FieldExperiment: Cost Effectiveness Analysis of the Use of DNA in theInvestigation of High-Volume Crimes Washington: Urban Institute),they have barely scratched the organisational surfaces of howachievements like DNA matches are deployed in the course of in-vestigations, let alone how these kinds of intelligence sit alongside awider repertoire of forensic and other information. Other researchmethods are necessary ifwe are to penetrate thegloss of such surfaces—in particular ethnographic studies and comparative case analyses. Onlywhen we use them will we be able to identify the ways in which anyforensic practice, established or novel, may have identified a suspect,eliminated a suspect, suggested a line of inquiry, curtailed a line ofinquiry, confirmed or refuted a supposition, established a sequence of

8 See in particular, the following papers by Green: ‘Translation 2 Research: TheRoadmap Less Travelled’. American Journal of Preventive Medicine (2007); ‘PublicHealth Asks of Systems Science’ American Journal of Public Health (2006); ‘FromResearch to “Best practices”’ American Journal of Health Behavior (2001).

7Shaping forensic science innovation

events, and soon.Andatwhat point in an inquiry these accomplishmentwere achieved and what happened when they were.

I have already argued elsewhere thatwehave to set aside statisticalmeasures of the ‘outputs’ and ‘outcomes’ of forensic work carried outto support criminal investigations. Rather, we need to build up a‘grammar of forensic investigation’. Such a grammarwould outline therepertoire of knowledge, actions and inferential processes that makepossible standardised forensic accomplishments and show theways inwhich these accomplishments are integrated into a wider investiga-tive process. In particular, it would show how abstract forms ofknowledge are embedded within the ‘concerted human reasoning,perception, conduct and communication’ (Coulter 1989:19) thatmakeup the reality of criminal investigations.9 An adequate account of thesematters would provide an important resource for the future trainingof investigative staff and for the assessment of the value of differentorganisational arrangements for the delivery of forensic support. Itwould help answer more general questions concerning the ways inwhich applications of forensic technologies are shaped by existingpolice systems and processes, as well as the ways in which theintegration of these technologies is driving change in establishedcrime investigation practices.

4. Conclusion

We aremeeting at a timewhen forensic science is at a crucial pointin its history. I know that such a claim is a commonone for those givinglectures like this one since it can be used to give the patina of globalsignificance towords thatwould otherwise be only local in their reach.However, everyone here will know that the recent report of the USNational Research Council on behalf of the National Academies ofScience Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A PathForward, provides a huge challenge for the future of forensic science. Inthis sense, the notion of crisis is not a hyperbole. Moreover, thechallenge of the report is not only one for the United States, but for allcontemporary criminal justice jurisdictions that make use of forensicscience to support investigations and prosecutions.10 Themost heavilyemphasised feature of the report is the necessity for more and betterresearch on forensic science. For the authors of the report, this seemedlargely to mean research on the foundations of forensic science,supplemented in part by work on social factors, where such factors

9 J. Coulter (1989), Mind in Action. Cambridge: Polity Press.10 In addition to this report, there exist a series of other similar interrogations ofcontemporary forensic science policy and practice. In England and Wales, these rangefrom the generic explorations of the Law Commission Consultation Paper TheAdmissibility of Expert Evidence in Criminal Proceedings in England & Wales: A NewApproach to Evidentiary Reliability, through the detailed scientific evaluation ofparticular forensic techniques as in Caddy et.al. A Review of the Science of Low TemplateDNA Analysis, to the ongoing Public Judicial Inquiry of fingerprint evidence offered inthe case of HM Advocate v McKie originally held in 1999.

were understood to compromise scientificity by the operation of biasand selectivity. Here I have been arguing that there are grounds forextending their understanding of research to downstream uses offorensic science and technology.

Earlier in this presentation I warned of the possibility that myreiteration of the importance of understanding the social factors thatshape the development of scientific knowledge and its technologicalapplications might irritate an audience of natural scientists, at leastthose members of such an audience who hold firmly to a view ofscience as a self-sustaining enterprise carried out in a social vacuumbyagents with no social attributes. However, I have argued in oppositionto such a view that an adequate understanding of the nature and usesof forensic science innovations simultaneously requires, and is capableof furthering, knowledge exchange between a variety of types ofagents: academic natural and social scientists, practising forensicscientists, forensic entrepreneurs and other commercial actors, policeand judicial users, policy makers, and the like. I believe this view ofhowwegenerate adequate understanding resonateswith thewords ofthe organisers of this conference who have talked about the ‘cycle ofknowledge creation, transfer and application’, where the word ‘cycle’emphasises the importance of iterated feedback between agents indifferent parts of the process.

Only our collective readiness to enter into such exchanges willenable us to improve our currently limited knowledge of how andwhen forensic science practice works best — in other words, toconstruct an evidence-based forensics capable of informing the kindsof policies and strategies that I talked about at the beginning of thispresentation. Only this readiness will allow us to get a grip on howforensic science innovation happens and is shaped. Only this readinesswill help us explain why it has also sometimes failed to live up to theexpectation of ‘speaking truth to justice’ which always has been itscentral ambition and driving force.

Robin WilliamsNorthumbria Forensics Centre, Northumbria University, UK

E-mail address: robin.williams@northumbria.ac.uk.