Tracing technologies: Prisoners' views in the era of CSI Helena Machado and Barabara Prainsack Ashgate 2012

The contemporary media provides a plethora of images of science and scientific practice. These often revolve around forensic technologies and the potential they offer in the investigation of crime. Whereas there are numerous accounts of the perceptions of these technologies and their uses by specific interested parties, from police personnel through to juries, this book is the first of its kind to consider prisoners as stakeholders in the contemporary uses of forensic science and forensic genetics in the criminal investigative process. Taking the prisoners and their narratives seriously, Machado and Prainsack examine the understandings, histories and perspectives offered by Portuguese and Austrian prison inmates in relation to bodily traces and forensic technologies. Concentrating on their sources of forensic knowledge, including their perceptions of media representations, and understandings of forensic evidence, the authors firmly place prisoners within debates about the utility, development and deployment of forensic technologies in contemporary law enforcement. The strength of this study lies in the textured data and analysis presented. Differences in accounts are embraced and interrogated by the authors, taking us far beyond any simple or homogenous prisoners’ view to seeing these actors as active agents, making sense of their practices, the practices of others and the potential of forensic technologies in diverse and interesting ways.