Weyermann Céline, Roux Claude
Ecole des Sciences Criminelles, Université de Lausanne, Switzerland.
Centre for Forensic Science, University of Technology Sydney, Australia.
Forensic Sci Int. 2021 Jun;323:110779. doi: 10.1016/j.forsciint.2021.110779. Epub 2021 Apr 10.
Recurrent mentions of a forensic science crisis are reported in the literature. Some 15 years ago, the discussion was focused on the backlog problem. Other issues have been regularly debated since then, including the risk of error, need for independence, importance and risk of contextualisation, increasing fragmentation into separate processes and specialisations. Proposed solutions to solve one problem often led to other issues in other parts of the process. This paper attempts to address the apparent crisis using a different perspective, through a comparison with established disciplines, namely material science, medicine and historical science. The comparison with material science shows that, despite the varied organisational and legal models and the interdisciplinary nature of the field, a common element to all forensic science endeavours exists: the trace. A greater focus on the trace might thus help the development of a holistic approach in forensic science. The comparison with medicine demonstrates that, through the overall process, the main risk shifts from the risk to overlook important hypotheses or traces at the beginning of the process (e.g. problems in the detection of traces/symptoms and formulation of hypotheses) to the risk of supporting the wrong hypothesis at the end of the process (e.g. erroneous test of the hypotheses/diagnostic). Further, in medicine, symptoms are rarely evaluated in isolation, while traces are often evaluated separately. By analogy, epidemiology illustrates forensic science's critical role in preventing crime through forensic intelligence, supporting a more extensive and more collaborative application of forensic science in security issues. The comparison with historical science also indicates that a single trace (i.e. the observed effect) is rarely sufficient to reason on its cause. Retrodiction (abduction) is proposed as an alternative reasoning approach to reconstruct events from the past based on signs uncovered in the present. Finally, the impact of science in investigating crimes is presented as an evolving process. A new trace or information can bring an entirely different light on the reconstruction of past events or prevention of future issues. Thus, issues or challenges in the first stages of the process (i.e., crime scene investigation) should be addressed in priority for subsequent stages to function correctly.
文献中经常提及法医学危机。大约15年前，讨论的焦点是积压问题。从那时起，其他问题也经常被辩论，包括错误风险、独立性需求、情境化的重要性和风险、日益碎片化成为单独的流程和专业领域。解决一个问题的提议方案往往会在流程的其他部分引发其他问题。本文试图从不同角度，通过与成熟学科（即材料科学、医学和历史科学）进行比较，来应对这一明显的危机。与材料科学的比较表明，尽管该领域的组织和法律模式各不相同且具有跨学科性质，但所有法医学工作都有一个共同要素：痕迹。因此，更关注痕迹可能有助于法医学整体方法的发展。与医学的比较表明，在整个过程中，主要风险从过程开始时忽视重要假设或痕迹的风险（例如痕迹/症状检测和假设形成方面的问题）转移到过程结束时支持错误假设的风险（例如假设/诊断的错误检验）。此外，在医学中，症状很少单独评估，而痕迹往往单独评估。类似地，流行病学说明了法医学在通过法医情报预防犯罪方面的关键作用，支持法医学在安全问题上更广泛、更协作的应用。与历史科学的比较还表明，单一痕迹（即观察到的效果）很少足以推断其原因。溯因推理（溯因法）被提议作为一种替代推理方法，用于根据当前发现的迹象重建过去的事件。最后，科学在犯罪调查中的影响被呈现为一个不断演变的过程。新的痕迹或信息可以为过去事件的重建或未来问题的预防带来截然不同的视角。因此，为使后续阶段正常运作，应优先解决过程第一阶段（即犯罪现场调查）中的问题或挑战。
