Between pencils and genetic markers: Rethinking innovation in policing through forensic face-making technologies

Abstract

In this article we take two forensic technologies used to generate facial renditions of suspects, forensic DNA phenotyping (FDP) and facial composite drawing, to think through innovation in policing. Comparing more mundane, taken-for-granted approaches of facial composite drawing with ‘high-tech’ facial renditions generated using DNA traces, we complicate the value of technological innovation in the criminal investigation. Drawing on participant observations conducted with the Dutch police, forensic genetic laboratories and interviews with investigators and geneticists, we detail some of the technicalities behind the making of faces using these technologies, and show the differences in how the technologies are perceived and applied in policing. With our comparison, we show that although facial composite drawing is often quickly dismissed as being subjective and unreliable, the practice holds important lessons for FDP, in particular FDP's promise of producing a photographic likeness of a suspect. With that, we demonstrate that besides introducing ‘new’ things, innovation may also be located in more mundane and taken-for-granted technologies such as facial composite drawing. We conclude by suggesting that police and technology developers alike take existing technologies and practices more seriously, redirecting the focus of innovation towards the affordances of the mundane.

The persistent attractions of low-tech: Challenging the efficiency paradigm of forensic technology

“…Because low-tech continues to play a crucial role for the crime scene investigations police, it is necessary to bring that perspective into discussions about the scientisation and modernisation of law enforcement. The mundane, or the less flashy, embodies a central role in knowledge production in policing, and is therefore deserving of dedicated academic attention (Hopman and Bleumink, 2023). Further, the question of the role of the human in the crime–technology nexus is made even more acute by ongoing efforts to develop new generations of policing and forensic technologies that seek to produce information from the genome, e.g.…”

“…Scholars in Criminology and Science and Technology Studies have long been interested in the relationships between technological phenomena and crime and control (Aas et al, 2009; Brown, 2006; Cole, 2001; Powell et al, 2018). Precisely the rapid development within technological innovation mandates a continued critical engagement with the field (Castro-Toledo et al, 2023; Hopman and Bleumink, 2023; Kaufmann and Vestad, 2023). However, even though low-tech innovations are often interconnected with high-tech development (Hirsch-Kreinsen et al, 2008), their influence remains largely under-researched, especially in the fields of forensics and policing.…”