Genetic Suspects: Global Governance of Forensic DNA Profiling and Databasing

by Edited by Richard Hindmarsh , Barbara Prainsack

• ISBN13: 9780521519434
• ISBN10: 0521519438
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-09-27
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

As DNA forensic profiling and databasing become established as key technologies in the toolbox of the forensic sciences, their expanding use raises important issues that promise to touch everyone's lives. In an authoritative global investigation of a diverse range of countries, including those at the forefront of these technologies' development and use, this book identifies and provides critical reflection upon the many issues of privacy; distributive justice; DNA information system ownership; biosurveillance; function creep; the reliability of collection, storage and analysis of DNA profiles; the possibility of transferring medical DNA information to forensics databases; and democratic involvement and transparency in governance, an emergent key theme. This book is timely and significant in providing the essential background and discussion of the ethical, legal and societal dimensions for academics, practitioners, public interest and criminal justice organisations, and students of the life sciences, law, politics, and sociology.

Author Biography

Richard Hindmarsh is Associate Professor at Griffith School of Environment, and centre for Governance and Public Policy, Griffith University, Australia. He specialises in co-produced sociotechnical systems analysis informed by science, technology and society (STS) studies; governance and regulation studies; environmental policy; and the politics and sociology of green biotechnology and forensic DNA technologies. Barbara Prainsack is Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Biomedicine Society (CBAS) at King's College London, UK. A political scientist by training, her research focuses on how politics, bioscience, religion and 'culture' mutually shape each other, and how they interact with how we understand ourselves as human beings, persons and citizens. Her research on regulatory and societal aspects of human cloning, stem cell research and DNA testing (both medical and forensic) has featured in national and international media.

Table of Contents

List of contributors	p. viii
About the contributors	p. xi
Foreword	p. xix
Acknowledgements	p. xxv
Introducing Genetic Suspects	p. 1
Key areas in DNA profiling and databasing	p. 13
Key issues in DNA profiling and databasing: implications for governance	p. 15
Forensic utilization of voluntarily collected DNA samples: law enforcement versus human rights	p. 40
Base assumptions? Racial aspects of US DNA forensics	p. 63
Health and wealth, law and order: banking DNA against disease and crime	p. 85
DNA profiling versus fingerprint evidence: more of the same?	p. 105
National contexts of forensic DNA technologies and key issues	p. 129
DNA databases and the forensic imaginary	p. 131
Partners in crime: the use of forensic DNA technologies in Austria	p. 153
Inquisitorial forensic DNA profiling in the Netherlands and the expansion of the forensic genetic body	p. 175
DNA the Nor-way: black-boxing the evidence and monopolising the key	p. 197
Portuguese forensic DNA database: political enthusiasm, public trust and probable issues in future practice	p. 218
On trial! Governing forensic DNA technologies in the USA	p. 240
Biosurveillance and biocivic concerns, from 'truth' to 'trust': the Australian forensic DNA terrain	p. 262
Finding the balance: forensic DNA profiling in New Zealand	p. 288
Forensic DNA profiling and databasing: the Philippine experience	p. 309
Conclusions	p. 331
Beyond borders: trends and challenges in global forensic profiling and databasing	p. 333
Index	p. 342
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