Reframing Forensic Science and Criminology for Catalyzing Innovation in Policing Practices
Olivier Ribaux · Policing A Journal of Policy and Practice · 2017
The current social and economic life is immersed in new spaces enabled by ubiquitous technological infrastructures. Crime systems of different types emerge from these changes. They are more global, larger in scale, complex, adaptive, and difficult to decipher. Traditional reactive strategies based on law enforcement and prosecution on a case-by-case basis, no longer function in this new context. The police must adapt but they meet difficulties in taking distance and conceptualizing the changes. This opinion paper explains why an academic department housing, both criminology and forensic science, is in good position for addressing these new issues in policing. The necessity to build approaches around physical and massively generated digital traces, provides the rationale for this alliance. Leads about how police professionals can be educated and trained for facing this new situation are also suggested.