ABSTRACT
Most of the time, forensic science is conceived as a support to criminal investigation. Empirical evidence indicates that police organizations use forensic science primarily to ‘build the case’ in corroborative investigations in which the suspect is already known. Tilley and Ford (1996) reported 20 years ago that forensic science was mostly used in a reactive wayas part of investigations, to ‘eliminate’ suspects or to confirm suspicions and thus support the search for more corroborative evidence.These authors found little evidence of the proactive use of forensic science.
While the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) of the United States now defines forensic sciences by specifying ‘determin[ing] the identity of an unknown suspect’ as one of its main uses (NIJ 2016), forensics are only beginning to be used as a way to identify high-risk places and expand our understanding about hot spots of criminal activity. This chapter discusses the main contributions of forensic science to the criminology of place. At the same time, I discuss how various kinds of traces of criminal activity have been used in empirical studies, starting from the most basic source of information (police records) and moving to more sophisticated methods (DNA, drug profiling).
