Technology is increasingly driving our lives and simultaneously offering new means of human behavior traceability. This situation is significantly challenging the standing, scope and role of forensic science in the criminal justice system. At the same time, criminology is developing innovative methodologies that encompass virtual worlds, and deal with the increasing quantity of accessible digital data reflecting criminal behaviors.
Identifying how these concerns overlap begs the question: should we reconsider the articulation of many aspects of both forensic science and criminology? Indeed, many opportunities exist and call for the (re-) emergence of fused approaches that rest on the information conveyed by the most fundamental element of forensic science: the ‘trace’, remnant of a litigious activity.
This paper proposes a progressive and systematic modeling activity along five steps: (a) the expression of the investigative logic of forensic science, which is aimed at reconstructing single events that occurred in the past by the interpretation of collected data from the scene of interest; (b) the use of theories in environmental criminology, in order to consider more explicitly the relation between the trace, its source, and the activity in the immediate physical and social environment; (c) a more systematic search for associations between traces, as well as between crime situations, which enables the eventual emergence of general models for studying crime repetitions, criminal behaviors and behaviors systems in crime; (d) find out studies in diverse areas of criminology that actually or potentially rely on forensic case data and (e) propose models and methods for framing the approach.
This progressive opening of forensic science towards criminological concerns is undertaken by a group of forensic scientists active in Australia, Canada and Europe and who are committed to defragment the compartmentalized fields of forensic science.