Paper short abstract:

Using the UK example, this paper locates changes to the forensic genetic assemblage in three wider contexts: scientific and technological developments in policing; crises in the government and governance of policing; and the strategic significance ascribed to life science in national policymaking.

Paper long abstract:

Ethical, legal, and political discussion of second wave forensic genetics has centred on the operation and governance of national police DNA databases. Now commentators and practitioners highlight how innovations such as DNA phenotyping, partial ‘familial’ matches, the repurposing of ancestry data, and new techniques for sample analysis disrupt this forensic genetic assemblage. Understandably, discussions have focused on drivers and consequences internal to the worlds of forensic genetics. Using the UK example, however, this paper locates change in three wider contexts: scientific and technological developments in policing; crises in the government and governance of policing; and the strategic significance ascribed to life science in national policymaking.

UK Policing is increasingly based on forms of abstraction and automation centred on the collection, management, and analysis of multiple forms of data. The scale of online sex offending, the rise of digital forensics, the growth of image databases and image recognition, all suggest the challenges and opportunities offered by a deluge of potentially valuable information. Meanwhile forensic genetics have become normalised and routinized under conditions of institutional complexity, instability, and financial constraint, leading to governmental neglect and a further thinning of ethical governance. Lastly, life science has become central to a vision of future UK prosperity and global pre-eminence rooted in biocapitalism in which citizens’ genetic, health, and welfare data in combination become key national assets. The conjunction of these three sets of developments create conditions in which the certainties of second wave forensic genetics may soon seem outdated.