Beyond CSI – Part II

Dr. William C. Thompson, Professor of Criminology, Law, & Society and Psychology & Social Behavior and Law

The Sherlock Holmes Syndrome: Why Forensic Scientists Make Bad Detectives (and Vice-Versa)

Abstract:  The CSI television series portrays forensic scientists in a dual role: part of the time they are in the lab performing scientific tests and part of the time they are working with detectives to put together all the evidence and solve the case.  CSI thus perpetuates the “scientist-detective” model that was first popularized by A. Conan Doyle with his famous fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, who relied on scientific experimentation as well as logic to solve crimes.  In this talk I will explain why and how psychologists (and other scholars) have recently challenged the scientist-detective model as a source of error and bias in criminal justice.  I will discuss possible alternative models that require detectives and laboratory analysts to work independently (at least part of the time), and will discuss how these new models may change forensic science and move the field “beyond CSI.”

Speaker Bio: Dr. Thompson is interested in human factors associated with forensic science evidence, including contextual and cognitive bias in forensic analysis and the communication of scientific findings to lawyers and juries.   He has written about strengths and limitations of various types of forensic science evidence, particularly DNA evidence, and about the ability of lay juries to evaluate evidence. His work is multidisciplinary, it involves law, psychology, various areas of biology (particularly genetics and molecular biology), and statistics.

Dr. Simon A. Cole, Professor of Criminology, Law & Society

The Changing Face of Controversy: The Impact of the NRC Report on the Treatment of Forensic Science in the Courts

Abstract: Science and law are two social institutions that enjoy great epistemic legitimacy and authority in contemporary, post-industrial societies. Depending on circumstances, these institutions may be seen as competing or cooperating, mutually constitutive or mutually deconstructing. Consistent with the Science & Technology Studies (STS) approach of treating controversies as opportunistic research sites, the epistemic space known as “forensic science” has, in recent decades, emerged as an important site where the interaction between these institutions may be observed. This presentation treats the 2009 publication of a report on forensic science by the U.S. National Research Council (NRC) as a watershed that facilitates the exploration of the controversy around the forensic sciences, and who gets to speak for them, in the United States, Canada and England. The NRC Report changed at least one facet of the controversy in that it allowed “science,” hitherto a heterogeneous set of voices with a variety of perspectives and credentials, to momentarily speak univocally, through an institution that—to the extent that any institution can—could claim to “speak for science.” The NRC produced a report that was surprisingly critical of both the forensic sciences and the performance of legal institutions. We might expect this temporary univocality and the directed criticism to pose challenges for law, which would have a hard time dismissing the epistemic authority of scientists and “science.” This presentation explores this question by comparing legal decisions on forensic science from before and after the NRC report. Did courts give greater weight to “science” when it speaks univocally in the guise of official reports from official institutions than when it speaks through individual scientists with their heterogeneous credentials and interests? And, if not, by what rhetorical devices did courts justify their rejection of scientific authority? The presentation will contribute to a deeper understanding of the nature of the controversies over forensic science, to controversy studies in STS generally, and to the literature on the relationship between science and law.

Speaker Bio: Simon A. Cole is Professor of Criminology, Law & Society at the University of California, Irvine. He received his Ph.D. in Science & Technology Studies from Cornell University. He is the author of Suspect Identities: A History of Fingerprinting and Criminal Identification (Harvard University Press, 2001), Truth Machine: The Contentious History of DNA Fingerprinting (University of Chicago Press, 2008, with Michael Lynch, Ruth McNally & Kathleen Jordan) and numerous scholarly articles about the scientific validity of forensic science and its use in the courts. He is Co-Editor of the journal Theoretical Criminology.

Prof. Jane K. Stoever, Assistant Clinical Professor of Law

Using Psychological Models to Improve Legal Responses to Domestic Violence

Abstract: The dominant theories used to explain domestic violence, namely, the Power and Control Wheel and the Cycle of Violence, provide only limited insight into intimate partner abuse.  Both theories focus exclusively on the abusive partner’s wrongful actions, consistent with recent decades’ concentration on criminalization, but fail to educate about the survivor’s needs and process of ending violence.  The Stages of Change Model from the field of psychology, conversely, reveals the process through which domestic abuse survivors seek an end to relationship violence and identifies the survivor’s needs and actions at various stages.  This critical information should inform domestic violence law and the representation of abuse survivors; however, this model remains unknown in the legal profession.  Professor Stoever will discuss how insights from the Stages of Change Model can transform legal responses to domestic violence.

Speaker Bio: Professor Stoever’s scholarly work focuses on the multiple oppressions domestic violence survivors face and explores ways that the law can better respond to complex experiences of intimate partner abuse. In addressing the interdisciplinary problem of domestic violence, her scholarship frequently brings together the worlds of law, public health, psychology, and survivors’ lived experiences. Along with presenting her scholarship at numerous conferences, Professor Stoever organized and hosted an annual cross-disciplinary domestic violence symposium in Seattle from 2009-2012, with leading academics and audiences of over 400 participants. Professor Stoever has also been featured in Harvard Law School’s Women’s Rights Guide.

Dr. Keramet Reiter, Assistant Professor of Criminology, Law, & Society and Law

The Prison within the Prison: Understanding the history and uses of long-term solitary confinement

Abstract: Concrete, steel, artificial light, complete technological automation, and total isolation – these are the basic conditions of supermaximum security prisons in the United States. “Supermax” prisoners remain alone twenty-three or more hours a day, locked into prisons within prisons, because prison administrators label them threats to the general prison population. Arizona opened the first supermax in 1986, and California opened the second in 1989. Over the next ten years, almost every state built a supermax. Then, in 2013, 30,000 prisoners in California began refusing food in order to draw attention to and seek reforms in these conditions of supermax confinement. A few dozen prisoners refused food for 60 days. The United Nations declared the conditions a violation of international human rights doctrines. I will give an overview of my book project, which examines three central questions about the birth of the supermax in Arizona and California and its proliferation across the United States: Who built the first supermaxes and why? How did the innovation get popularized? What impact has ever-increasing uses of solitary confinement had on U.S. prisons, law, and society?

Speaker Bio: Keramet Reiter studies prisons, prisoners’ rights, and the impact of prison and punishment policy on individuals, communities, and legal systems.  She uses a variety of methods in her work — including interviewing, archival and legal analysis, and quantitative data analysis — in order to understand both the history and impact of criminal justice policies, from medical experimentation on prisoners and record clearing programs to the use of long-term solitary confinement in the United States.

Dr. Keramet Reiter, Assistant Professor of Criminology, Law, & Society and Law

The Prison within the Prison: Understanding the history and uses of long-term solitary confinement

Abstract: Concrete, steel, artificial light, complete technological automation, and total isolation – these are the basic conditions of supermaximum security prisons in the United States. “Supermax” prisoners remain alone twenty-three or more hours a day, locked into prisons within prisons, because prison administrators label them threats to the general prison population. Arizona opened the first supermax in 1986, and California opened the second in 1989. Over the next ten years, almost every state built a supermax. Then, in 2013, 30,000 prisoners in California began refusing food in order to draw attention to and seek reforms in these conditions of supermax confinement. A few dozen prisoners refused food for 60 days. The United Nations declared the conditions a violation of international human rights doctrines. I will give an overview of my book project, which examines three central questions about the birth of the supermax in Arizona and California and its proliferation across the United States: Who built the first supermaxes and why? How did the innovation get popularized? What impact has ever-increasing uses of solitary confinement had on U.S. prisons, law, and society?

Speaker Bio: Keramet Reiter studies prisons, prisoners’ rights, and the impact of prison and punishment policy on individuals, communities, and legal systems.  She uses a variety of methods in her work — including interviewing, archival and legal analysis, and quantitative data analysis — in order to understand both the history and impact of criminal justice policies, from medical experimentation on prisoners and record clearing programs to the use of long-term solitary confinement in the United States.