A Futuristic Vision of Forensic Science
Itiel E. Dror, Ruth M. Morgan · Journal of Forensic Sciences · 2019
What will forensic science look like in the future?Forensic science has a promising future as new methods, technologies, and scientific advancements create new possibilities that have not yet been imagined.For example, while the discovery and utilization of DNA has transformed current-day forensic science, it will continue to do so as the detection technologies develop and our understanding of trace DNA transfer, persistence, prevalence, and recovery grows.New discoveries can create incremental evolutionary changes or revolutionary changes that will reshape the face of forensic science all together.We cannot predict the innovations and new technologies that will come to be, but we can certainly expect that they will happen (1) and that they will create new possibilities for forensic science.In this piece, we engage in a thought exercise to consider and present a view of what forensic science may look like in the future.It is intended to share ideas and provoke discussions about the direction forensic science may take in the future, what it can be, and what it will be capable of.This futuristic view takes into account that one of the most critical, challenging, and foundational aspects of forensic science is that it is a complex interdisciplinary field, with multiple stakeholders, drivers, and pressures (2).For this reason, the potential of new technologies and an increased evidence base to underpin crime reconstructions is clear.While we present here a vision of how these new capabilities may shape forensic science in the future, it is beyond the scope of this piece to provide technical details of how these developments may be implemented given that many of these technologies have yet to be created.Forensic science is often driven by specific issues and scandals (such as a miscarriage of justice), and resources are specifically deployed to address them (3).This means that forensic science is often reactive to "symptoms" that arise (4,5), rather than engaging in continuous and systematic proactive examination, research, and self-reflection as routine practice.In addition, forensic science frequently works within the framework that "every case is different," which creates a fundamental tension between research seeking to develop generalizable theories and approaches, and professional practices in crime reconstruction.Therefore, taking a longer term view of the possibilities and potentially desirable directions of the future of forensic science is an important undertaking.