Table Of ContentTRACING TECHNOLOGIES
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Tracing Technologies
Prisoners’ Views in the Era of CSI
HELENA MACHADO
University of Minho, Portugal
BARBARA PRAINSACK
Brunel University, UK
RO Routledge
U
TLED Taylor & Francis Group
G
E
LONDON AND NEW YORK
First published 20129b y Ashgate Publishing
Published 2016 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
Copyright © Helena Machado and Barbara Prainsack 2012
Helena Machado and Barbara Prainsack have asserted their right under the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the authors of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in
any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Notice:
Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are
used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Machado, Helena.
Tracing technologies : prisoners’ views in the era of CSI.
1. Forensic sciences. 2. Forensic sciences on television.
3. Mass media and crime. 4. Crime prevention. 5. DNA
fingerprinting. 6. DNA data banks. 7. Criminals--Austria--
Attitudes. 8. Criminals--Portugal--Attitudes.
I. Title II. Prainsack, Barbara.
363.2'5-dc23
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Machado, Helena.
Tracing technologies : prisoners’ views in the era of CSI / by Helena
Machado and Barbara Prainsack.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4094-3074-2 (hbk)
1. Forensic sciences. 2. DNA fingerprinting. 3. Prisoners--Attitudes. 4. Evidence,
Criminal--Psychological aspects. 5. Criminal justice, Administration of.
I. Prainsack, Barbara. II. Title.
HV8073.M2192 2011
363.25--dc23
2011047490
ISBN 9781409430742 (hbk)
Contents
List of Figures and Tables vii
Foreword by Troy Duster ix
Acknowledgments xxi
1 Introduction 1
2 Setting the Scene: Austria 19
3 Setting the Scene: Portugal 39
4 Inside Jobs: How to Avoid Crime Scene Traces 57
5 Biological Traces: ‘The Evidence Doesn’t Lie’ 73
6 In Everybody, ‘There’s Always a Bug Inside’:
Does DNA Profiling and Databasing Deter Criminals? 91
7 Technologies of Innocence: Exoneration and Exculpation 109
8 Criminal Bodies and Abusive Authorities 129
9 Conclusion 149
Afterword: Forensic DNA and the Human Sciences 163
by Robin Williams
Glossary 175
References 183
Index 207
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List of Figures and Tables
Figures
F.1 Prisoners under state or federal jurisdiction 1977–2004 xix
Tables
1.1a Characterisation of the sample of prisoners in Austria 8
1.1b Characterisation of the sample of prisoners in Portugal 10
2.1 Regulatory characteristics of the Austrian Forensic DNA Database 24
2.2 Entry and removal criteria of the DNA profiles and
sample retention and destruction 25
3.1 Regulatory characteristics of the Portuguese Forensic
DNA Database 46
3.2 Entry and removal criteria of the DNA profiles and
sample destruction 47
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Foreword:
CSI in Fiction, Fantasy and Fact
Troy Duster
Introduction
Crime Scene Investigation stories have captured and held the public’s imagination
as have few other genres – reaching an apex with Conan Doyle’s super-sleuth
Sherlock Holmes. Indeed, a full century of murder mysteries and detective novels,
from Agatha Christie to Erle Stanley Gardner to Dashiell Hammet have fuelled the
fantasies of audiences and filled the coffers of book publishers, radio programs,
and most recently producers of ongoing television series. The most popular of
these programs is aptly and simply called CSI, but their spin-offs and penetration
into far-flung areas across the globe represent an astonishing success. This
outcome is not merely to be understood in terms of economic rewards, but is also
a socio-political development that has perceptibly penetrated real-life criminal
justice systems in ways worthy of serious study and focused intellectual effort.
This book is Exhibit A.
Several years ago, I was invited to give a lecture at a university in Singapore
on the social and political context of new and developing technologies in human
molecular genetics. When I reached the point in my presentation where I turned
to forensics, I decided to ask my audience of about 350 students and faculty ‘how
many had seen or heard of a CSI television program?’. Nearly everyone raised their
hands. Intrigued by this response, a few months later when I was speaking before an
audience mainly of social scientists in London, I decided to ask the same question.
The results were similar. While this seemed anecdotal at first, as the authors point
out at the beginning of the first chapter, we now know that CSI has become the most
popular crime series across the globe (Brewer and Ley 2010: 111).
In part because sensational public cases go to jury, in part because crime
novelists and fictional portrayals in both movies and television, the popular
imagination casts ‘the jury’ foremost as the main agent in determining guilt or
innocence for those who are accused and brought before authorities in the criminal
justice system. We all have seen a movie or a television program in which the jury
is swayed by the work of a key legal aide who rushes in at the eleventh hour with
critical new information that dramatically turns the case – and justice is done.
So it comes as a surprise to most when they learn that less than 10 per cent of all
convictions in any nation-state are the result of a jury’s deliberations. Indeed, the
public is completely shut out of the most important deliberations that will send
a citizen to prison, or set him or her free (because charges are either dropped or
never formally brought).
