Prisoners' views of CSI's portrayal of forensic identification technologies: a grounded assessment

Drawing on interviews with prison inmates in Portugal, the aim of this paper is to contribute towards a more practical approach and greater sensitivity to the situatedness of the so-called CSI effect by examining the heterogeneous elements involved in the construction of meanings for forensic science and technology. It discusses the ways in which this particular group’s representations of forensic genetics reveal forms of exposure to, but also distancing from, the cultural images circulated by the media. The results indicate that, given that they are in an advantageous position for acquiring knowledge of these issues, this group is relatively skeptical of fictionalized portrayals of DNA technology as infallible and as the most powerful tool that can be used to solve crime. Prison inmates construct a grounded assessment of forensic technologies that derives from the position they occupy in the real world of crime and criminal investigation.I am extremely grateful to Diana Miranda and Filipe Santos for their involvement in the fieldwork for this study and to Manuela Ivone Cunha for her collaboration in producing the report of this study for the General Board of Prison Services (Portugal). I also would like to express my gratitude for the illuminating comments made by Susana Silva on early drafts of this article and to Barbara Prainsack who provided invaluable guidance throughout the research process and shared personal insights from her own studies on prison inmates' perceptions of DNA technology. The research for this article was supported by the Foundation for Science and Technology (Portuguese Ministry of Education and Science) through a post-doctoral fellowship (SFRH/BPD/34143/2006), the project "Forensic DNA databasing in Portugal: contemporary issues in ethics, practices and policy" (FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-009231) and the project "Justice, media and citizenship" (FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-007554)