ABSTRACT
Justice refers to the allocation of burdens and benets in a society. e types of justice pertinent in forensic genetics are retributive and distributive justice. Criminal law rests on theories of retributive justice. Competing theories, which we shall not pursue here, rely on dierent principles to ascertain which conduct should subject an oender to punishment and what punishment is appropriate for a particular oense and oender given the circumstances of the conduct and the nature, knowledge, and motivation of the criminal. For the purpose this chapter, we assume that the criminal code and its enforcement are generally just, so that the forensic scientist faces no ethical quandary in supplying information for criminal investigations and trials.
