Risky profiles: societal dimensions of forensic uses of DNA profiling technologies

This editorial opens with a brief overview of social science and STS work on the use of forensic DNA technologies and DNA evidence. We argue that social science and STS scholars have made a valuable contribution to destabilizing and deconstructing the image of DNA technologies as infallible producers of scientific truth. However, there are some aspects of forensic DNA practices and technologies which have not yet seen the same level of critical scrutiny. The second part of the editorial discusses the contributions to this Special Issue, and considers how they address some of the gaps in social science and STS research identified.