ABSTRACT
This chapter describes a recent study of the work of the specialized occupational group before going on to outline the kinds of actions that comprise competent crime scene examination for members of this group and for other investigators with whom they work. It reviews the efforts to stipulate idealized ratiocinative standards for the cognitive orientation of forensic investigators with what detailed empirical study reveals as two working principles accountably oriented to by investigators in the course of their construction of, and work within, crime scenes. Then the chapter describes how these same principles not only direction the production of a range of 'forensic artefacts', but are also embedded in the methods of their production. It describes a recently reported dispute over the forensic examination of a particular domestic burglary to show how skilled practitioners used detailed knowledge of how such artefacts are made to raise doubts about the credibility of one particular example which was central to the prosecution case.
