Socio-technical disagreements as ethical fora: Parabon NanoLab’s forensic DNA Snapshot™ service at the intersection of discourses around robust science, technology validation, and commerce

2020

Soc Stud Sci

Forensic DNA Phenotyping (FDP) is a set of techniques that aim to infer externally visible characteristics in humans – such as eye, hair and skin color – and biogeographical ancestry of an unknown person, based on biological material. FDP has been applied in various jurisdictions in a limited number of high-profile cases to provide intelligence for criminal investigations. There are on-going controversies about the reliability and validity of FDP, which come together with debates about the ethical challenges emerging from the use of this technology in the criminal justice system. Our study explores how, in the context of complex politics of legitimation of and contestation over the use of FDP, forensic geneticists in Europe perceive this technology’s potential applications, utility and risks. Forensic geneticists perform several forms of discursive boundary work, making distinctions between science and the criminal justice system, experts and non-experts, and good and bad science. Such forms of boundary work reconstruct the complex positioning vis-à-vis legal and scientific realities. In particular, while mobilizing interest in FDP, forensic geneticists simultaneously carve out notions of risk, accountability and scientific conduct that perform distance from FDP’ implications in the criminal justice system.

Section: Boundary Work: Experts and Non-expertsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Forensic DNA phenotyping and its politics of legitimation and contestation: Views of forensic geneticists in Europe

2020

Soc Stud Sci

“…These expanding high expectations are further complicated by the claims made by the company Parabon NanoLabs, which markets forensic DNA phenotyping as a technology able to produce facial composite images of potential suspects, including facial features and morphology. Claims of that kind have been extensively criticized by criminal justice stakeholders and scientific practitioners who research and work in the field of forensic DNA phenotyping (Wienroth, 2018b).…”

Section: Forensic Dna Phenotypingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In a different piece of work, Wienroth also analyses how forensic DNA phenotyping is entrenched in the political economy of forensic genetics, anchored in the intersection of scientific ethics, forensic practices and commercial resources. Drawing on the case of Parabon NanoLabs' DNA photo-fits, the author outlines how scientists' ethical reasoning about the development and use of forensic DNA phenotyping tackles issues of validation, epistemic transparency, science legitimacy and commercial value in ways that continuously reassert scientific primacy over commercial, legal and judicial concerns (Wienroth, 2018b).…”

Section: Forensic Dna Phenotypingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Emerging DNA Technologies and Stigmatization

Forensic Genetics in the Governance of Crime

2020

Despite their consolidated role in providing evidence for criminal justice, DNA technologies have been subjected to continuous investment that has given rise to the emergence of new DNA technologies. This chapter will focus on such innovations, explaining how forensic genetics is increasingly expanding its role in the criminal justice system. Recent technologies such as familial searching and forensic DNA phenotyping might help to generate intelligence for criminal investigations. Familial searching is a technology that attempts to identify criminal suspects through their genetic connection with relatives. Forensic DNA phenotyping makes it possible to focus on a particular suspect group that shares genetic ancestry and/or externally visible characteristics. The chapter critically reviews the existing debate in the field of social sciences about emerging DNA technologies. The core argument is that the application of DNA phenotyping and familial searching in the governance of crime holds the potential to increase risks of stigmatization and reinforce the criminalization of certain populations who are more vulnerable to the actions of the criminal justice system.

“…The social-definition paradigm follows an approach based on understanding and interpreting social action, and is inspired by the works of Max Weber (1949). This paradigm is focused on analysing the way that the social actors define their social relationships and their connected social contexts, as well as the effects of those definitions on the development of actions and interactions.…”

Section: Paradigms Of Sociological Thoughtmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Sociological Gaze

Forensic Genetics in the Governance of Crime

2020

This chapter provides an explanation and context for situating the particular approach of sociology to the social phenomenon of the uses of forensic genetics in criminal justice systems. The aim is to describe, in an accessible manner, why the governance of crime using science and technology is a fertile domain for sociological enquiry and identify its distinctive features. This chapter provides a comprehensive overview of the main lines of enquiry and concepts of sociological paradigms, namely by focusing on the continuum, tensions and translations between distinctive levels of analysis: micro-macro and objective-subjective. The presentation of the lines of social thought and concepts is accompanied by a brief reference to practical cases of empirical research related to the use of forensic genetics in the criminal justice system. The chapter will enable the reader to acquire theoretical and analytical skills which may be applied in academic research into the various topics and themes addressed in the book's different chapters.