Forensic Science and Justice: From Crime Scene to Court and Beyond

Forensic science is becoming an integral component of the criminal justice system. Many commentators have noted this and yet the role of forensic science in the criminal justice system is only now beginning to emerge as an area of research interest among criminologists. It is possible to identify a growth in criminological research in forensic science in the United Kingdom (UK) (Bradbury and Feist 2005), Europe (Ribaux et al 2010a, 2010b), Canada (McDonald 2001) and the United States (Peterson et al 2010; Baskin and Sommers 2010; Wilson, McClure and Weisburd 2010). However, research in Australia has been limited predominantly to exploring the use of forensic evidence in the courts (Briody and Prenzler 2005; Briody 2002, 2004; Edmond 2010; Wheate 2010) and the degree
to which juries do or do not understand DNA evidence (Goodman-Delahunty and Hewson 2010). Yet, forensic science is much broader than DNA and is involved in various stages of the criminal justice process: from collection and analysis of ‘evidence’ to criminal investigation to prosecution to the courts. And perhaps, more importantly, both criminology and forensic science share crime as the object of their study.