Under EU Law, Member States are compelled to engage in reciprocal automated forensic DNA profile exchange for stepping up on cross-border cooperation, particularly in combating terrorism and cross-border crime. The ethical implications of this transnational DNA data exchange are paramount. Exploring what the concept of ethics means to forensic practitioners actively involved in transnational DNA data exchange allows discussing how ethics can be addressed as embedded in the sociality of science and in the way scientific work is legitimated. The narratives of forensic practitioners juxtapose the construction of fluid ethical boundary work between science and non-science with the dynamic management of controversies, both of which are seen as ways to lend legitimacy and objectivity to scientific work.Ethical boundary work involves diverse fluid forms: as a boundary between science/ethics, science/criminal justice system, and good and bad science. The management of controversies occurs in three interrelated ways. First, through a continuous process of reconstructing delegations of responsibility in dealing with uncertainty surrounding the reliability of DNA evidence. Second, threats to the protection of data are portrayed as being resolved by blackboxing privacy. Finally, controversies related to social accountability and transparency are negotiated through the lens of opening science to the public.

Intensive parenting" ideologies have been increasingly disseminated in popular culture, expert discourses, and social policy. These have impacted particularly mothers owing to their actual or presumed central role in child rearing. One of the main features of these ideologies is an increasing apportioning of rights and responsibilities to families without taking into account the resources needed to sustain the work of caring according to dominant social expectations. Drawing on 20 interviews in a Portuguese female prison, this article explores how mothering is enacted by underprivileged and criminalized women. Data show a complex web of tensions between the norms implicit in "intensive parenting" ideologies and the actual practices, which imprisoned mothers can accomplish. In their mothering from prison, women enact vulnerable resistance to the penal policies that undermine their primary role in child rearing. That is, prisoners creatively negotiate a space within which they can define themselves as "good mothers."

The automatic exchange and comparison of DNA data between national databases to combat terrorism and crossborder crime in the EU area has been facilitated by the 2008 Prüm Decisions. While it was anticipated that all EU Member States would have fulfilled the requirements by August 2011, this has not yet occurred. Once each Member State has implemented the Prüm Decisions, which is expected to occur by spring or summer 2019, the EU Commission is planning on submitting a legislative proposal to amend the Prüm Decisions, possibly broadening its scope both in terms of types of data exchanged and the number of countries involved. Therefore, it is a timely place to review the available literature on the existing data on the cross-border exchange and comparison of DNA. However, due to the limited amount of available data regarding the Prüm regime's contribution to combating crime and terrorism, this article reviews national DNA databases' contribution to national criminal justice systems before it turns to the Prüm regime. Outlining how Prüm represents an "aspirational regime" focused on a secure and safe future, we draft recommendations directed towards rendering cross-border exchange of DNA data more transparent and accountable.

The exchange of forensic DNA data is seen as an increasingly important tool in criminal investigations into organised crime, control strategies and counterterrorism measures. On the basis of a set of interviews with police professionals involved in the transnational exchange of DNA data between EU countries, this paper examines how forensic DNA evidence is given meaning within the various different ways of constructing a police epistemic culture, it is, a set of shared values concerning valid knowledge and practices normatively considered adequate and legitimate. The police epistemic culture is fuelled by multiple dynamics of boundary work, revealing how police professionals involved in international cooperation (i) define their specific core activities and competencies; (ii) construct particular understandings of valid knowledge and how it should be produced; (iii) enact the police epistemic culture in contrast to the epistemic cultures of the judicial authorities and forensic scientists.

Familial searching is a technology that detects genetic relatedness. The term is generally used to refer to searches conducted in criminal DNA databases to identify criminal suspects through their connection with relatives. Beyond criminal investigation purposes, familial searching might also be used for the identification of unknown bodies and missing persons. The United Kingdom and Poland are cases that illustrate the variability of familial searching meanings, uses, and regulations. In the United Kingdom, familial searching is regulated by exceptionality and is mainly used for the identification of suspects in serious criminal cases. In Poland, familial searching is regulated within the framework of expanding the scope of its application to the search and/or identification of missing persons. Drawing on interviews with diverse key stakeholders in the United Kingdom and Poland, we address the ethical controversies of familial searching in the field of criminal investigation and in the domain of missing persons together. We argue that the views of stakeholders about the ethical controversies of familial searching lead to prescribing specific notions of social risks, public good, and the accountability of the state.