SCIJUS-00444; No of Pages 8 Science and Justice xxx (2014) xxx–xxx

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Expanding forensic science through forensic intelligence Olivier Ribaux a,⁎, Benjamin Talbot Wright b a b

Ecole des Sciences Criminelles, School of Forensic Science, University of Lausanne, Switzerland Centre for Forensic Science, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history: Received 29 January 2014 Received in revised form 14 April 2014 Accepted 6 May 2014 Available online xxxx Keywords: Forensic intelligence Policing Crime analysis

a b s t r a c t Research and Development (‘R&D’) in forensic science currently focuses on innovative technologies improving the efficiency of existing forensic processes, from the detection of marks and traces at the scene, to their presentation in Court. R&D approached from this perspective provides no response to doubts raised by recent criminological studies, which question the effective contribution of forensic science to crime reduction, and to policing in general. Traces (i.e. forensic case data), as remnants of criminal activity are collected and used in various forms of crime monitoring and investigation. The aforementioned doubts therefore need to be addressed by expressing how information is conveyed by traces in these processes. Modelling from this standpoint expands the scope of forensic science and provides new R&D opportunities. Twelve propositions for R&D are stated in order to pave the way. © 2014 Forensic Science Society. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction The influential report produced under the auspices of the US National Academies of Sciences in 2009, is an almost mandatory starting point for debating Research and Development (‘R&D’) in forensic science [39]. Its focus on the development of specialised technologies and its validation provides for what are all inarguably challenges for forensic science laboratories which serve the Justice System [9,38,46,56]. Some commentators have however pointed to many anomalies with the current paradigm taken for granted by the Report. At least, it is acknowledged that forensic science does not limit itself to the application of a patchwork of technologies deployed in the laboratory [21,23,30,32, 47,58]. A school of thought goes further to suggest a change of attitude to respond to the emerging crisis epitomised by the tragic closure of some of the more established traditional laboratories. A discipline should be (re-)built around the study of the ‘trace’, the remnant of a unique criminal activity that occurred in the past. The information it conveys is not only restricted to serve the Court process but should also support the study of many types of crime activities, following a variety of objectives [35,36,52,53]. This paper aims at structuring this debate by stating twelve interconnected propositions, at different levels of generality, to be tested by research. They should be considered as a preliminary construct open to evolution.

⁎ Corresponding author at: University of Lausanne, Ecole des Sciences Criminelles, Batochime, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland. E-mail address: [email protected] (O. Ribaux).

1.1. Is this expansion necessary? Proposition 1. Expanding R&D in forensic science beyond its delineation in the report is a necessity for providing a discipline with a sufficient ambition to justify its existence, ensure its own coherency and favour its sustainable development. The need to consider the contribution of forensic science beyond the laboratory is already occasionally postulated by scholars [30], but the scientific literature on this issue remains rare [52]. There are many possibilities to specify territories to be explored [37]. They have overlapping shapes. We propose one possible configuration that helps to pinpoint risks and opportunities for forensic science to engage in these areas.

1.2. What should this expansion cover? The most evident step for such an expansion consists of adopting a global view that goes from the crime scene to the presentation of evidence in Court. In this context, the traditional laboratory is situated as one possible structure responsible for performing specialised operations. Proposition 2. Research in forensic science covers the study of its contribution along the whole chain of the justice process, from the crime scene, to the presentation of forensic information in Court. This elementary expansion for forensic science is not a given. There are many inhibitors that dissuade researchers to embark on such a venture. Some commentators even deny, or strictly limit, an expanded role for forensic science along this chain:

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scijus.2014.05.001 1355-0306/© 2014 Forensic Science Society. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

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‘Expanding the forensic scientists’ domain to the ‘activity level’ destroys the line between their expertise in their specific forensic discipline and a more general (and dangerous) claim to general investigative expertise ([46: 70]). This confined view is mainly justified by the need to keep scientific independence, mitigating contextual bias and avoiding encroachment upon each other competencies. Such statements are particularly stimulating for research. They immediately lead to directly address the question of the application of forensic science. Would it truly deserve existence, by merely bringing small/simple pieces of evidence before the justice system (source level involvement only)? And in doing so endangering the fairness of the judicial process at such an increased cost? The extremity of this confinement should be more carefully studied, because it is not immediately apparent when adjoined with Polanyi's statement: ‘Even the most strictly mechanized procedure leaves something to personal skill in the exercise of which an individual bias may enter’ ([41]: 19). And combined with Rosenthal affirmation: ‘It costs something to reduce errors, and it costs more and more to get rid of each error as there are fewer of them left’ [49]. Reconstructing specific events that occurred in the past is subject to many forms of uncertainty. Whatever the level of sophistication of procedures and models for making decisions, forensic failures will continue to occur unavoidably. Each high profile case will invariably put a little more pressure on the system with the effect of progressively confining scientific laboratories in the landscape of the justice system. This reduction in the scope of laboratories may open space for more fragile information and biased forms of reasoning to prosper in crime investigation. This could not be more evident than in the collection of human information (interview) that is guided by forensic results, in the complete absence of forensic advice. An alternative response to the collapse of some independent laboratories is to rebuild forensic capacity within police organisations. It may be another natural evolution of systems searching to fill gaps created. Is this movement already a reality? Research could empirically test this hypothesis. The reality of this confinement is often tempered by the employment of a case manager in the laboratory. This still understudied function focuses on mitigating risks of biases produced by observer effects. It proceeds by separating the management of the case from the evaluation of observations, and by filtering contextual information about the case through sequential unmasking procedures [56]. However, this defensive function provides little indication on how forensic science and crime investigation should logically be articulated to favour the resolution of investigative problems. This needs to be studied also. Whatever the viewpoint, forensic science cannot operate in isolation. Indeed, lack of research dedicated to expressing this articulation allows space for pervasive misunderstandings and tensions between organisations and individuals to prosper. It is also true that no guarantee can be made for forensic case data to be safely and transparently exploited to its full potential in the variety of processes it serves. The study of the whole chain brings into focus two of its important components: (a) the contribution of forensic science to crime investigation and (b) crime scene investigation itself. 1.2.1. Studying how forensic science may integrate with crime investigation The proposition to adopt a global view that starts at the scene and ends in Court forces the study of different forms of articulation of forensic science within crime investigation, and their respective consequences on the whole process.

This is an area of many controversies. They occur in a judicial context that is itself poorly formalised [25], and which is the target of many criticisms. In particular, in his 1984 seminal paper, Egger [14] pinpointed the incapacity of police systems to connect dots, leading to disastrous failures in serial murder investigations. He denounced the fragmentation of crime investigation as it causes linkage blindness. This is where the fragmentation of forensic science, confined in specialities and silos, certainly does not address these systemic weaknesses coined by Egger. Research may examine how the fluidity of the treatment of scientific information is inhibited by traditional organisational settings of forensic laboratories. Thus, the following statement challenges the usual pathway designed for forensic science. Proposition 3. Crime investigation is holistic, and forensic science is a significant contributor to it. In shaping police organisations during the last decade, the focus has been on how crime analysts, investigators, forensic scientists and other contributors differ through their speciality, while they actually participate collectively to the same process of crime investigation. Digital traces have added new dimensions to the picture. They are used almost systematically and are central to most of today's investigations. A promising avenue for research would be to consider what the actors (i.e. the various contributors to the investigations bringing their own knowledge and expertise) share, and what kind of collaboration must be stimulated to favour and regulate problem solving. Indeed, the term investigation contains at its root vestige, which means in French the remnant of an activity, the mark, the ‘trace’ [10]; exactly what forensic science studies according to Margot [36]. Adopting this view allows the definition of stable concepts and frameworks. A research programme could thus examine, as its object, a system composed of different kinds of investigators (e.g. police investigator, forensic investigator, criminal intelligence analysts) trying to solve problems through a collective approach, by bringing their specific knowledge and skills in treating specific types of information. A lot of empirical studies could be launched around this system, its functioning, its adaptation to the investigation of specific cases, its transparency and its effectiveness. This kind of research will inevitably address the question of organising forensic science with respect to the fragmentation of the investigative process. Various forms of bias and their consequences have been intensively discussed in forensic literature. This catalysed the debate of marginalising the forensic scientist from the investigation. However, the consequences of this fragmentation and de-contextualisation have been far less considered. This opens an important consideration that is directly related with a more holistic view of the investigation. Proposition 4. The fragmentation of processes in systems and the distancing of scientists from other figures of the investigation might contribute to a variety of failures, not addressed by laboratory quality management. Thus, contextualisation and de-contextualisation must be studied in mirror, depending on needs and expectations of the criminal justice process. There are already many documented illustrations where such failures have occurred. One significant example is the Byford's report on the Yorkshire Ripper inquiry in 1981 [6]. So called ‘Byford scientists’ have since the mid 90s deployed good practices in the role of forensic investigators, contributing concretely to the resolution of many serious crimes [1,57]. It is their responsibility to generate a productive collaboration with the other ‘actors’ (i.e. a contributing figure), of the investigation. Similar models have since been developed in many laboratories. These scientists have a global view on forensic case data available in the context of a case. They provide advice on how to treat it by defining sequences of operations, as well as evaluating and integrating results with other parts of the investigation. Priorities are defined for optimising information gained and, at the same time, avoiding costly and superfluous

Please cite this article as: O. Ribaux, B. Talbot Wright, Expanding forensic science through forensic intelligence, Sci. Justice (2014), http:// dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scijus.2014.05.001

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operations. However, the nature of the contribution of this generalist, even if it is well admitted in the field, is very rarely debated in the scientific literature [1,54,55]. Consequently, the realisation of this task remains largely tacit and therefore needs to be formalised in order to ensure transparency (see proposition five). We experience this same modelling gap at the scene.

1.2.2. Studying forensic science at the crime scene Empirical research has detected many unexplained discrepancies when measuring performance at the crime scene. They have been recurrently made evident not only across jurisdictions and operational units, but also when making comparisons within the same units [2]. Such results are compounded by the disparity of views about the character of crime scene examination as shown by a survey conducted in Scotland [33]. As it turns out, a significant number of respondents, among them forensic scientists from the laboratory and crime scene examiners themselves, still consider it as substantially ‘mechanical’ (can be carried out by applying a set of predefined learned procedures that allow little space for inductive thinking). Such unexplained disparities should raise many more questions for research. Standard operating procedures for crime scene examination and lab-on-a-chip technologies are on the way to implementation before intensive research is performed to understand the underlying logic of the treatment. We risk putting the cart before the horse. A set of studies should deserve more attention in this context. For instance, Kelty and Julian [24] have identified seven qualities that characterise high performance crime scene examiners selected by peers: knowledge, life experience, professionalism, approach to life, cognitive abilities, communication and stress management. These dimensions overlap with the recurrent themes identified in the literature reviewed by Ludwig and Fraser [32] on what factors seem to influence forensic science effectiveness (and weaknesses) in dealing with high volume crime. The results are signs that crime scene examination is not mechanical in character. It rather belongs to an imaginative type of activity. They encourage associations of ideas, favour the use of a solid scientific background to regulate reasoning, and allow the deployment of abilities

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to intensively communicate and exchange information. Such signs indicate the types of frameworks to be elaborated or how to recruit people. But research must go far further in deciphering the underlying logic operating at the scene and in crime investigation.

1.2.3. The study of an investigative and crime scene logic Let us use a very simplified model in order to sketch the modelling challenge (Fig. 1). Forensic science deals with activities that are unique, and that generate material (or digital) exchanges, according to Locard's principle. After a certain time (Δt), crime scene investigators attend the scene and collect specimens. Crime reconstruction consists of developing hypotheses about the activity, objects and individuals. A series of cycles aim at discriminating and refuting hypotheses, as well as develop new hypotheses. Beliefs change as a function of newly available information. The active development of hypotheses about what occurred in the specific situation is at the core of the process. Crime scene investigators intensively apply this ‘abductive’ logic at the scene [11]. At the other extremity of the judicial process, the Court, the expert evaluates information from the perspective of the remaining hypotheses of the defence and of the prosecutor. At this stage, a more deductive style of reasoning takes place for the forensic scientist, in a stabilised cycle (probabilities of observations knowing the proposition of the prosecutor, and respectively of the defence). There is still much to be understood beyond this very simplified model. Taking part in the expression of an investigative logic is suggested as a priority for forensic science. Proposition 5. Research in forensic science needs an epistemological component for elaborating upon the foundations of an investigative logic exploiting information conveyed by traces (forensic case data). This very limited overview shows that the quality of crime scene examination and forensic investigation is mainly determined by the ability to draw relevant hypotheses from observations in the specific circumstances of the case, and to regulate their management. Moreover, the potential contribution of forensic science in crime investigation is of a

Fig. 1. The reconstruction process. A criminal activity perturbs the physical environment (a). Relevant specimen is recognised, collected and measured (b). Alternative hypothesis is developed (d). The consequences are eventually tested, refuted, discriminated and evaluated through experiments.

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broad variety, when viewed with such a clinical perspective [58]. It is felt to be significant, but this is still not demonstrated by research. An epistemological exploration can lead for instance to suggest links between works such as Peirce semiotic [13], the evidential paradigm of the historian Carlo Ginzburg [16], the method of historical science that searches for explanations to past singular events on the basis of currently observable marks [7,8], the scientific investigation of crime defined by Kind [25], the use of probabilities in the investigation suggested by Jackson et al. [22], and case-based reasoning when successful solutions to previous problems are used to deal with a new similar situation [26]. Probably many other approaches can be integrated where traces are recognised as signs providing information on what occurred in the past. 1.3. Questioning the effectiveness of forensic science This background causes other concerns about how to appropriately integrate innovative and flourishing technologies. The laboratorycentric view of forensic science causes deviation from this fundamental question. It focuses mainly on technologies rather than on the value of information conveyed by forensic case data. Peter Deforest wrote in 1999: ‘Has the field advanced?’ On the face of it there would seem to be no question that the field of criminalistics has advanced. But has it? While we have forged ahead technologically, in my view we have backslid with respect to our core activity — that of applying science and scientific reasoning to criminal and civil investigations ([12: 197]). Technologies are aimed at supporting the resolution of problems. But the specific problem under scrutiny, as well as the global impact of forensic science on solving and reducing crime often remains relegated behind the prescriptive application of procedures and technologies. The rapid evolution of technologies may provide an explanation of this deviation. DNA came about 80 years after the implementation of fingerprints. But the quantity of electronic data has since exploded, at a time scale that is equivalent to about half a professional career. ‘Big data’ has become an effective issue in less than one generation of students [51]. Efforts to assimilate these changes are tremendous. The

Policing debate

market is stimulated to push new technologies at a rate that exceeds our own ability to integrate them. Lab-on-a-chip and big data technologies are at the door, but the current paradigm provides no solution for avoiding a further destabilisation of the discipline. A solid vision elaborated through a strong focus on fundamental research has become indispensable in our rapidly evolving system. Another exciting avenue for research exists here. Proposition 6. Refocusing forensic science on problem solving will provide a more central position to the discipline in crime investigation, as well as greater stability and sustainability. By focusing on means rather than ends and distancing from other actors, current forensic systems forget to consider their global effectiveness in policing [53]. Indeed, when it is measured, an embarrassing evidence funnel is made visible, i.e. there is a huge gap between what is collected at the scene and what is effectively used at the end of the judicial process. This gap is made always more explicit through the so called end-to-end studies on the use of DNA profiles (Fig. 2). They show that the chance for a trace, generated by the activity of the offender, to be eventually presented at Court, remains very low, no matter how extensively technology is deployed. Information is lost at various decision points throughout the case handling process. Registering the case and attending the scene, processing the crime scene and choosing if a specimen must be sent to the laboratory are examples of choices to be made. Many factors influence the extraction of the profile, the comparison of the profile with the content of databases, the interpretation of matches, the integration of results into the investigation, the use of this evidence in reporting, and eventually the use of the piece of evidence at Court. Regardless, when seen as a whole, the process provides a questioning picture for the effectiveness of forensic science. Such evaluations however are unfair. These indicators do not grasp the broad variety of useful information brought to the investigation by forensic science. The UK Parliamentary Select Committee ‘Forensic Science on Trial’ acknowledged this in 2005: ‘The main contribution that forensic science makes to the criminal justice system is the generation of intelligence to assist investigations’ ([20]: 8).

Justice / Forensic debate

Fig. 2. Order of magnitude of the DNA evidence funnel for high volume crime.

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There are unfortunately still very few empirical bases to ground this assertion. Beyond investigation, forensic science is understood according to the lines debated in the scientific literature. Development centres on serving the Court process, yet it is evaluated on how it supports crime control or crime reduction strategies in policing (see Fig. 2). There is a tension here that needs urgently to be made visible by research, because this misunderstanding may have dramatic consequences in deciding the future of forensic science [2,5,48,57].

1.4. Forensic science in policing There is again a lack of models and almost no scientific debate to express the potential of forensic science in policing. Proposition 7. Forensic science can and should contribute to, and actively engage in policing. Going into policing is another controversial possible expansion for forensic science. As Inman and Rudin state, forensic science is required to strictly stay focussed on the court's need: ‘The scientific analysis is only performed at the behest of someone seeking to introduce the evidence into a court of law’ ([21:15]). In this context, can forensic science enter into the policing debate, which is a discipline that has acquired some autonomy from the justice system? This is also a delicate question, but let's have a quick and simplified look at a contemporary policing debate in order to better identify risks and opportunities. It may actually be that the broad use of separate forensic identification techniques in a court-oriented strategy is already contributing to overwhelm actors of the system. The order of magnitude of the number of matches obtained through biometric systems has changed. Estimations already indicate that the treatment of all the matches obtained at a national and international level through automatic data exchanges becomes intractable. At the same time, the real effect of this traditional intensive case-by-case identification method is controversial in terms of crime reduction [44]. But what are the alternatives? Mostly they focus much more on the study of repetitive crimes. They started to emerge in the 1970s along many different lines. Goldstein has initiated one of the most important streams [17]. He defined ‘problem oriented policing’ (POP), which aims at providing a proactive component to the organisation. The process concentrates efforts on Scanning repetitive and persistent criminal or security problems encountered by the police in their daily operations (S). Their Analysis (A) encourages then inferring the causes of the problem identified. Elaboration of possible Responses for mitigating the problem, choosing and implementing what is expected to be the more efficient solutions are the next steps of the approach (R). The systematic Assessment and adaptation of the chosen dispositive finalises the process (A). The focus is on mitigating the problem by preferring preventive approaches, not necessarily by arresting or identifying individuals. This method has become very popular in policing and known under the acronym SARA. Does forensic science really have something to do with problem oriented policing? There are actually many examples of such implications. One such experience in Boston is particularly interesting and was the object of scientific papers written by Braga [3,4], a distinguished specialist in problem oriented policing. It was eventually recognised that the systematic comparisons of bullets collected at crime scenes ‘helped guide violence prevention efforts by establishing patterns in particular areas and among specific individuals’. Of importance is to notice that this programme was not led by the police, but by other institutions that had to deal with the problem. Policing does not mean that the

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police are the only actors, or even that they must lead such projects or to what degree they participate in the application of the method. What is common in these modern strategies, beyond problem solving policing, is the focus on repetitive crimes under all their forms. Even if different streams in policing exist, they tend to be regrouped under the umbrella of ‘intelligence-led policing’. This opens the door to potential fears prompted by the misinterpretation of the term ‘intelligence’. Thus, has forensic science to compromise with intelligence by developing a forensic intelligence branch? Maybe the term itself ‘forensic intelligence’ which is occasionally regarded an oxymoron, is not an appropriate one. The term seeks only to express that forensic case data has the potential to contribute in a structured way to the detection and strategic approach towards repetitive crime, the support of preventative policing models, and the disruption of criminal enterprises in crime reduction. The first generation of intelligence-led policing systems was much more based on the results of research in criminology, that clearly showed that a few minority of offenders were responsible for a high proportion of crimes reported [42]. Targeting and neutralising these so-called prolific offenders would hopefully significantly reduce crime. Obviously, the problem was how to target prolific offenders. Traditional police solutions can be intrusive, and predicting recidivism is far from obvious. How forensic science can support this process in a more neutral way is thus a critical question to be evaluated within this framework. This way of considering forensic science in policing changes the metrics, and even the econometrics, for evaluating its efficiency. In this framework, assessing the following proposition takes an evident importance. Proposition 8. The adoption of intelligence-led policing changes how to consider the effectiveness of forensic science. Intelligence-led crime scene processing and crime scene linking become central. Let us take one example to obtain an understanding of the dimension of the challenge.

1.5. Forensic science and intelligence-led policing: an example A crime scene investigator attends scenes of residential burglaries into the same building. He collects on the door of each premise an earmark. He notices a horizontal line on the top of the mark, which is assumed to be caused by a cap. Despite his significant experience, the investigator has never noticed such a mark. The discovery of this unusual line catalyses the detection of a repetition. With such a filter in mind, he retrieves from the files, two other earmarks collected ten days and one month before. He thus extended his initial vision of the series, thanks to this retrospective analysis. He will further add three other cases, then again two others, but with a lower quality. Even by recognising that the common origin of the marks present uncertainties, he extends his view on the series. From all the marks gathered through this comparison process, the morphology of the ears appears more clearly. This convinces him to add eventually two other marks to the series, but on which no horizontal line was visible. All these earmarks have been collected on residential burglaries perpetrated in the same way. These cases are distributed throughout the same region over a period of two months. The day after the first intervention, with the whole profile in mind, the investigator collects new marks presenting the same horizontal line. The assumed perpetrator did not operate alone, because other marks were also collected. Together with shoemarks and glovemarks, other comparisons now consolidate this perception of growing repetition. At this stage, the series crystallises and the whole crime scene investigator's unit is made aware of its profile, together with crime analysts and detectives. New cases are now regularly added into the series thanks to the awareness of crime scene investigators attending new

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cases. Later in the construction of the repetition, the correspondence of partial DNA profiles extracted from three marks adds confidence in some of the links. According to the geographical profile of the series, other police forces were warned about the existence of the series and new links across jurisdictions can be added to it from this initiative. This work eventually had a great impact on resource allocation, investigation, the arrest of the perpetrator and how evidence was eventually structured for Court purpose. This mechanism may look very familiar to many practitioners. In a survey covering 6 police departments in Switzerland with 73 participants, it was found that 80% of crime scene investigators recognised the need to make the effort to know about current crime series before attending scenes [43]. Such reasoning processes are almost absent from scientific literature. It needs to be clearly expressed in order to improve transparency. The examples rest on tacit logical operations, and conceal the variety of decisions made by forensic analysts concerning how this information is integrated with crime analysis. The adequate level of formalisation is difficult to be defined, because it must promote the subtlety of the human mind to draw analogies of all sorts [45]. Mechanisms to mitigate cognitive biases must be also implemented as a counterpart to this flexibility. But are these efforts worth it? The type of recovered marks that catalysed the discovery of the series does not belong to evidence that is usually searched for. No standard operating procedure for dealing with high volume crime would have anticipated the possibility to find a horizontal mark on a door. This observation came about, more due to a difficultly expressed culmination of crime scene investigator cognitive, qualities both professional and technical, and an openness to remain surprised by something not included in the standard method. This way of thinking has led to solve a significant number of burglaries in proportion with the high volume crime rate this particular region suffered during this period. The approach consisted of targeting this particular (group of) prolific offender(s) by thinking about what forensic science could do to neutralise them. It was perfectly in line with intelligence-led policing philosophy, but not with the standard way of processing the massive flow of data in high volume crime. By recognising the importance of repetitive crimes, the demarcation between the clinical method of approaching serious crime and the statistical way of treating massive flow of high volume crime data, blurs. This is the challenge we put to forensic science research: to develop such a proposition. This research programme could provide a great alternative to improve transparency in ‘targeting the prolific offender’. In turn, these efforts could dramatically change the shape of the evidence funnel and modify the metric for evaluating the effectiveness of forensic science.

1.6. Forensic science and data mining Intelligence-led policing and the increasing quantity of available information lead naturally to the search for affinities between forensic science and movements related to ‘big data’ and ‘data mining’. The view emerges that big data generated by new traceability of human activities can be mined by new technologies to provide solutions to crime problems. This generates unrealistic expectations: the ‘ideal’ of a computerised machine extracting relevant patterns and hypothesis directly from big amounts of data shows possibilities of application that are much more restricted than what is occasionally hailed. It is not obvious to what degree this process is even possible without injecting existing knowledge and involving human reasoning to guide the search [18]. Proposition 9. Situate the scope of methods and techniques for mining forensic case data. Criminological findings regarding prolific offenders can, in fact, provide more specific orientations for developing research projects in this area, without framing the search in a too narrow way. For example:

Proposition 10. As criminological research recurrently shows that few (groups of) offenders are committing a majority of crime, desistance, changes of behaviour and new activities are made detectable in analysing time series in forensic case data. Possibilities to detect tendencies through the occurrence of sole mark patterns are a consequence of this statement. Fig. 3 is a cumulative curve of the occurrence of a specific sole mark pattern collected at burglaries crime scenes. This curve does not directly point to a specific burglar, but rather attracts the attention of the forensic crime analyst towards a set of data likely to point to repetitive crimes. This detected pattern must be then analysed by integrating other contextual information (e.g. spatio-temporal, modus operandi). As another illustration among many, some evolution in the make and model of firearms used by offenders inferred from bullets collected at crime scenes, points to the activity perpetrated by a specific crime organisation and has oriented priorities and operations throughout inquiries [19].

1.7. Forensic science and criminology The study of crime cannot entirely abstract from its physical or numerical substrate. How could we reason about fire without knowledge of combustion? Infer about illicit drug trafficking and consumption without knowledge of chemical profiles? Approach violent crime without considering physical harm? Navigate goods counterfeiting without considering internet infrastructures? Conversely, the collection and interpretation of forensic case data for explaining the activity call for the use of theories of criminology. This is our broader proposition in terms of R&D to reconsider connections between both disciplines, while fundamental sciences have distanced them by erecting often irrelevant barriers [40]. Proposition 11. Integrate forensic science and criminology to support the study of crime. Very simple examples illustrate obvious opportunities. For instance the family of theories regrouped under the umbrella of environmental criminology, or opportunities theories, study crime in its immediate physical and social environment [59]. How could these theories be of no use for crime scene investigators, when their main focus is to imagine how the offender has overcome all the constraints imposed by their immediate environment? There is huge potential to be realised by using theories focused on the settings for crime [15]. Particularly in the UK, some awareness of these possibilities already exists, complemented by good specific research, but forensic research overall remains very shy in supporting such avenues. Emerging studies go further. They show that there is a growing interest for criminologists to use the solid structure provided by DNA links for testing hypothesis on the structure of high volume crime, the mobility of offenders, or aspects pertaining to criminal careers [27–29, 31,50].

2. Conclusion If forensic science chooses to stay in the shell of the laboratory, it must dramatically restrict its ambitions. Bringing progressively less relevant information for a higher cost is not justifiable. Theorising an expansion is a real challenge in the function of the newfound traceability of human's operation that changes the nature and the order of magnitude of the quantity of available information. By paraphrasing concerns of groups of scholars about research related with the police [34], this is the final and general proposition to promote a fundamental programme.

Please cite this article as: O. Ribaux, B. Talbot Wright, Expanding forensic science through forensic intelligence, Sci. Justice (2014), http:// dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scijus.2014.05.001

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Fig. 3. Plot of accumulated footwear impressions vs burglary scene attendance (by courtesy of Samuel Rodrigues).

Proposition 12. Research on forensic science should be prioritised, rather than research for forensic science considered within the current justice paradigm. Forensic science should be treated as an entity to be made the object of future research. This means not only developing and validating new tools and methods within the forensic's paradigm promoted by the report (research for forensic science), but also debating its nature (research on forensic science). Research on such an entity utilising fewer, more concise, fundamental pillars affords discipline and universality to its findings. The outcomes of so oriented inquiry are a deeper, more thorough understanding of the science, more valuable, valid and versatile methods and a more mature, grounded forensic science community overall.

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Please cite this article as: O. Ribaux, B. Talbot Wright, Expanding forensic science through forensic intelligence, Sci. Justice (2014), http:// dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scijus.2014.05.001