Homicide Investigation and Forensic Science: Tracing Processes, Analysing Practices

Assertions of the increasing importance of science and technology to the security and policing of contemporary
society have been the subject of widespread academic commentary, including studies of systems of surveillance
(e.g. Zuriek & Salter, 2005; Lyon, 2006) and of the introduction of new technologies for risk management (e.g.
Ericson & Haggerty, 1997; Williams & Johnson, 2008). This historical development has been described as the
‘scientification’ (Ericson & Shearing, 1986), or the ‘technification’ (Nogala, 1995) of police work, and is a
phenomenon which exemplifies a wider assumption that science and technology have the power to settle
intractable social issues, including those of security and social order (Geertz, 1983).
Forensic science constitutes a subset of these scientific and technological applications. Recent work has drawn
attention to variations in the disciplinary foundations of different domains of forensic science (e.g. National
Research Council, 2009), the potential problems of ‘reliance on science’ for criminal justice (e.g. Garrett, 2011),