ABSTRACT
This chapter considers how Science and Technology Studies (STS) perspectives can illuminate forensic science in new ways. It challenges ideas regarding the role for social research on forensic science. The chapter soughts to go beyond thinking about questions of cause and effect, such as questions about the effect of DNA profiling on offending. It acknowledges that such data, if generated through suitable rigorous research, is an invaluable aid to policy-making. The chapter describes how forensic science is used, how representations of forensic science are constructed through its use, and what impact these representations exert on collective attitudes about science and society as a whole. The chapter demonstrates the value of a critical view of the structures and systems underpinning forensic science. It examines the contingency and interdependency at the heart of the evolving relationship between science, the law and society at large.
