ABSTRACT

This chapter explores the inter-resonances of three case studies in which genes and crime conscript the wider cultural imaginary. It focuses on the conditions of possibility of knowledge, the power relations of its context, its socio-cultural consequences and its modes of iteration, to an additional question, that of the conditions of plausibility of knowledge. The Innocence Project is a national litigation and public policy organisation dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted individuals through DNA testing and reforming the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice. The chapter examines in what follows exemplify all of these definitions, crossing over between scholarly-scientific output, socio-political project and procedural-forensic entertainment. The incipient positivism and essentialist tendencies of genetic science tap into wider debates about the reconcilability of biological frameworks with social issues, problems and processes. It concludes by emphasising that the question is not whether genetic evidence will ever be admitted into court, but when and under what kinds of circumstances.