Micro/Macro Translations: The creation of new social structures in the case of DNA Profiling

Structures in the Case of DNA Profiling*
Micro ⁄Macro Translations: The Production of New Social
Linda Derksen, Vancouver Island University

Socio

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DOI:

Examples drawn from the history of DNA profiling in the United States are used

to show how knowledge claims about DNA profiling became part of the wider social

structure. A crucial aspect of this process was the formation of new social structures at

the micro and macro levels. Social order and knowledge formed within a community

of practice, the FBI sponsored Technical Working Group on DNA Methods

(TWGDAM), was translated and entrenched in new formal social structures, such as

the DNA Identification Act of 1994. This in turn gave further stability and credibility

to the knowledge about DNA profiling advanced by TWGDAM, as well as their status

as a credible professional organization. This article contributes an understanding of the

role that new social structures play in linking the micro and the macro levels of social

structure.

Introduction

In 1969, 16-year-old David Milgaard was arrested for the brutal rape and

murder of Gail Miller in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Despite his protestations

of innocence, on January 31, 1970, Milgaard was convicted and sentenced to

life in prison with no possibility of parole for 25 years. One year later,

the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal rejected an appeal of his case, and in

November 1971, the Supreme Court of Canada again denied Milgaard’s right

to appeal. In 1988, the Milgaard family hired James Ferris, a forensic patholo-

gist from Vancouver, British Columbia to use the new technology of DNA

profiling to prove Milgaard’s innocence, but the test results were inconclusive

(Tyler 1997).

In January 1992, Milgaard testified before the Supreme Court of Canada

that he had not raped or killed Gail Miller 23 years before. However, new

DNA tests, which had been conducted in the United States, were again incon-

clusive (Tyler 1997). The Supreme Court did rule that Milgaard should be

granted a new trial, but the Provincial government of Saskatchewan decided

not to prosecute him again. Milgaard was freed from prison, but was not

acquitted of the crime. In 1997, new DNA tests were conducted in England,

logical Inquiry, Vol. 80, No. 2, May 2010, 214–240

10 Alpha Kappa Delta

10.1111/j.1475-682X.2010.00328.x

MICRO ⁄ MACRO TRANSLATIONS 215

by American, British, and Canadian scientists. Although it had been 12 years

since the discovery of DNA profiling, the Miller garments were the oldest to

ever be subjected to DNA testing for legal purposes (Tyler 1997). On July 18,

1997, Milgaard’s lawyers announced that the DNA on Miller’s garments did

not match Milgaard’s DNA, proving conclusively that Milgaard had not com-

mitted Gail Miller’s murder. Two years later, on May 17, 1999, the Canadian

government awarded Milgaard and his family a $10 million compensation

package (CBC.ca 2008).

It would be logical to assume that the reason the 1997 tests ‘‘proved’’

Milgaard’s innocence while the two previous tests had been inconclusive is

that the science ‘‘got better’’ over time. This answer would be far too simplis-

tic. The scientific techniques involved in DNA profiling actually changed very

little in that 9 year period, although they were refined and simplified. The big-

gest change in DNA profiling between 1988 and 1997 was the constellation of

social relations surrounding DNA profiling. In 1988, at the time of the first

tests, there were no standards of practice, no shared protocols, and no norms

governing interpretation of the fuzzy profiles. In the United States, DNA pro-

filing was being offered only by two private companies who used incompatible

methods. The FBI had begun investigations into its forensic utility. The sec-

ond set of tests occurred in 1992, when the ‘‘DNA Wars’’ were in full swing

as scientists fought with each other on the pages of Nature, Science, and TheAmerican Journal of Human Genetics. The National Research Council’s first

Committee on DNA Technology in Forensic Science had just released its first

report to widespread criticism. In short, at the time of both early tests, there

was little consensus in the scientific community about conducting and inter-

preting DNA profiling.

By the time of the third test in 1997, everything had changed. The 1994

DNA Identification Act had legislated protocols, quality assurance guidelines,

and considerable funding to spread the technology to crime laboratories

across the nation. There was a DNA Databank, which held DNA profiles of

more than 50,000 convicted offenders from all 50 states. The FBI had a

DNA laboratory up and running, all crime laboratories in the United States

and Canada were using the same methods for making DNA profiles, and

there was a stable community of practitioners, many of whom were members

of the FBI funded Technical Working Group on DNA Methods (TWGDAM).

And the scientists had quit arguing with each other over statistical issues. By

the time David Milgaard had his third DNA test, the one that proved he

could not have raped and murdered Gail Miller—many, many people were

committed to utilizing DNA profiling for forensic purposes, including the

Canadian and United States governments. The scientific procedures that were

used at the three time points were very similar, but by 1997, there was a

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wide-reaching and stable network of social structures supporting the

knowledge.

In what follows I use the examples drawn from the history of DNA pro-

filing in the United States to show how individual knowledge claims about

DNA profiling became part of the wider social structure in the United States. I

argue that a crucial aspect of this process was the formation of new social

structures at the micro and macro levels. In advancing this argument, I con-

tribute an understanding of the role that new social structures play in linking

the micro and the macro. It is important to note that the theoretical model pre-

sented here does not attempt to be representative of all of the processes

involved in stabilizing knowledge about DNA profiling. Here, I follow just

one part of the historical story, which covers largely the role of the FBI and

TWGDAM.

All scientific knowledge claims, DNA profiling included, are advanced by

one or more persons in a particular space, at a particular time. And yet,

knowledge pervades virtually all of our institutions—education, medicine, the

military, the criminal justice system, the economy, and affects almost every

aspect of our lives. These institutions transmit and maintain scientific knowl-

edge and credibility, and their legitimacy rests heavily on scientific knowledge

(Shapin 2001:15930–31). To understand the process by which knowledge

claims ‘‘escape’’ the local and embodied contexts of their production and

become part of the wider social order, is also to understand something funda-

mental about society. In this case, how the micro level of interaction is linked

to the macro level of social structure. Order and consensus are the outcome of

successful knowledge making activities, not the explanatory resources invoked

to explain truth (Shapin 1996; Coleman 1986:1320–27).

As sociologists, we know that ‘‘scientific knowledge penetrates and

transforms social relations’’ (Bohme and Stehr 1986:5), but most theories of

modernity view science and technology from the outside, as a powerful insti-

tution which affects society like a natural force. Although most classical

social theorists were fundamentally concerned with the emergence of new

social structures that arose with modernity, such as capitalism, bureaucracy,

and organic solidarity, many contemporary social theorists have turned away

from this task, to focus instead on the reproduction of existing social struc-

tures. Much of this work focuses on the tension between the micro and

macro, attempting to link the two levels of analysis (Bourdieu 1985; Giddens

1979, 1984). In sociology, the debate as to whether ontological and causal

primacy should be assigned to human agency or to social structure—to the

micro or the macro—dates back to the origins of the discipline (Alexander

and Giesen 1987; Coleman 1986:1320–27). During the 1980s and 1990s,

the micro–macro problem emerged as the major theoretical concern for


American sociology (Ritzer 1990), and in Europe the agency ⁄ structure prob-

lem has ‘‘rightly come to be seen as the basic issue in modern social the-

ory’’ (Archer 1988:ix). This concern for the link between human agency and

social structure is the predominant problematic in the work of many contem-

porary theorists including Anthony Giddens (1979, 1982, 1984), Pierre Bour-

dieu (1977, 1984), Margaret Archer (1988, 1990) and Randall Collins (1988,

1992).

Here, I draw together two bodies of inquiry: the sociology of scientific

knowledge (SSK) and sociological theories of the micro ⁄ macro link. I argue

first, that knowledge and social order are created together, whether at the

micro or macro level, through the production of new social structures. New

social structures which bring order to micro interactions, or macro struc-

tures, emerge out of the process of making knowledge, and new knowledge

is reciprocally dependent on the formation of these structures. These new

social structures can be micro, such as consensus between people, or

macro, such as legislation or databanks. Second, because to make knowl-

edge is also to make social order, I seek to contribute to debates about

micro ⁄ macro links and the agency ⁄ structure dynamic by arguing that

knowledge production is a crucial link between the micro and the macro.

To do this, I use examples from the history of DNA profiling to show

specific moments of translation where new knowledge and social order pro-

duced at the micro level are taken up—entrenched—into new social struc-

tures at the macro level.1 I argue that these new structures are the outcome

of successful solutions to the problem of social order, which results in

credible knowledge. Through historical analysis of some of the events

involved in stabilizing DNA profiling, I provide empirical examples of howknowledge becomes entrenched in social order through the production of

new social structures.

SSK scholars Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer argue that in the sev-

enteenth century, the founders of the Royal Society offered their new

experimental method as a means by which gentlemen could discuss freely

contentious matters of fact, without the very real threat of civil unrest.

Today’s experimental method had its genesis not just in the exchange of

‘‘article and ideas,’’ but also in the ‘‘practical social regulation of men and

machines.’’ In attempting to produce knowledge, the seventeenth century

natural philosophers had to establish social order, in the form of a commu-

nity of experimenters who created shared social conventions for the produc-

tion of knowledge. For these early scientists, ‘‘[t]he effective solution to

the problem of knowledge was predicated upon a solution to the problem

of social order’’ (1985:281–82). Further, Shapin (1994) argues that

social order was based on gentlemanly codes of conduct which included

218 LINDA DERKSEN

knowledge of who could be trusted to speak the truth, and under what

circumstances.

It is one thing to argue that such a strong relationship between practices

of knowledge production and social order existed in seventeenth century in a

time of social unrest, but does this argument have anything to offer in the

twenty-first century? And if it does, how do contemporary knowledge claims

that begin in a specific place, in the hands of one or a few people, become

entrenched into the very fabric of our social order?

Here, I follow Randall Collins in viewing the micro and macro as the

poles of a continuum, where the ‘‘micro’’ involves fewer people in smaller

spaces, and interactions occupy a shorter time period. Subsequently, the

‘‘macro’’ involves more people in larger spaces over longer time frames

(R. Collins 1988:386–88). Collins argues that macro structures are simply

abstractions of the ‘‘empirical realities of people across many situations’’

(R. Collins 1988:393). This is partly true, as people can only experience social

structures in micro situations. However, many social structures, particularly at

the macro level, exist as more obdurate, physical entities. I think here of

rational-legal structures, such as the law, which exists in written form, and

which guides the actions of many people in most daily encounters. It involves

a huge number of people, across a wide expanse of space, endures through

time, and it is a formal, macro social structure. Giddens notes that social struc-

ture can be an intended or an unintended effect of interaction, partly because

interaction creates ‘‘institutionalized patterns of behavior’’ (1984:110–44),

which we recognize as social structures. However, he defines social structure

as ‘‘rules and regulations’’ which exist in people’s heads (1979, 1984) which

is again, partly true, but does not cover the material aspects of some social

structures, nor their existence as rational-legal documents which are used to

order micro interactions.

The process of stabilizing and standardizing knowledge about DNA pro-

filing led to the creation many different social structures between 1985 and

2000. These include, but are not limited to stabilized practices and protocols,

norms of interpretation, group professionalization, standards of practice, labo-

ratories, databases, political projects, and legislation. Here, I use the concept

of social structure to encompass informal and formal agreements, tacit knowl-

edge, legal standards, legislation, and social institutions. Social structure

includes laws and legislation which provide material resources, establish gov-

erning and advisory bodies, and allocate authority for the legitimate use of

force. In operation, those governing and advisory bodies probably belong in

the middle of the informal–formal continuum. The important point is that

social structures are the outcome of situated human labor which takes place

over time. The particular structures which I am talking about are also

Figure 1Macro ⁄ Micro ⁄ Macro Translations in Production of Knowledge ⁄ Order in the

Case of DNA Profiling.


intricately linked to the formation of new knowledge, specifically about DNA

profiling. This includes quantification of measurement error, group consensus

on the correct interpretation of DNA autorads, development of norms of

professional behavior, and standards of proficiency in a laboratory. Figure 1

provides a conceptual diagram of the argument I am advancing, based on the

history of DNA profiling.

To illustrate these micro ⁄ macro translations, in what follows I discuss

three ‘‘moments’’ in the stabilization of DNA profiling which illustrate its

movement from the local spaces and bodies of its making, to its status as

credible knowledge entrenched in formal social structure and order. First, I

discuss the quantification of measurement error, and how numbers compensate

for the gap between theory and methods. Quantification of measurement error

was important because it created a single number to replace a wide range of

personal, subjective, and technical sources of variation in the measurement

of DNA fragment lengths (Derksen 2000:805). Once fragment length and

220 LINDA DERKSEN

potential error were quantified, DNA profiles could ‘‘escape’’ the laboratory

and be transported to courtrooms or stored in databanks. Second, I show how

norms for making and interpreting DNA protocols were the outcome of the

growth of a new community of practice, TWGDAM, sponsored and facilitated

by the FBI. These first two ‘‘moments’’ facilitated the uptake of knowledge

into social structure in the form of legislation and other formally established

groups. Newly formed structures created new parameters within which human

interactions could vary, particularly with respect to the forensic use of DNA.

For example, the DNA Identification Grants Act of 1994 entrenched the

knowledge and practices of a very small group of people into macro social

structure, thus stabilizing and further enhancing the credibility of their knowl-

edge claims. As Weber argued, legislation might be the most formal form of

social structure which underlies social order. In addition, I provide brief

descriptions of some of the new social structures which resulted from the

stabilization of knowledge about DNA profiling, and which in turn further

legitimated that knowledge.

Brief Synopsis of the Case Study

The path to credibility for DNA profiling was complex, twisted, and

fraught with bitter controversy (Lander 1989; Thompson and Ford 1990;

Lander 1991; Derksen 2000, 2003; Aronson 2007; Lynch, Cole, McNally and

Jordan 2009). DNA typing for forensic uses was developed in private compa-

nies (Daemmrich 1998), and used for the first time in a U.S. courtroom in

1987 (Andrews v State of Florida). In a 1989 landmark double murder trial

now known as the Castro case (People v. Castro 1989) defense attorneys

exposed how dependent DNA profiling was on local practices and subjective

decisions (Derksen 2000; Jasanoff 1995:42–68; Lander 1989).

The Castro case made DNA profiling a ‘‘problem’’ for academia, forensic

scientists, and law enforcement agencies, primarily the FBI. Concerned about

losing such a potentially fruitful source of evidence, the FBI asked the

National Academy of Science to convene a National Research Council (NRC)

committee to investigate and solve the problems associated with the technol-

ogy. The first Committee on DNA Technology in Forensic Science (NRC1)

was convened in 1990, and released its final report in April 1992 (National

Research Council 1992) to widespread criticism.

In December 1991, ‘‘the DNA Wars’’ began when the prestigious journal

Science published two journal articles by prominent population geneticists—one

very ‘‘pro’’ DNA profiling and one decidedly against it (Chakraborty and Kidd

1991; Lewontin and Hartl 1991; Roberts 1991). As expert witnesses, scientists

clashed violently with each other in courtrooms, and then went back to their

laboratories to write up their expert witness reports as journal articles which


they then submitted for peer review and publication in scientific journals. The

‘‘DNA Wars’’ in academia occurred mostly between 1992 and 1994, and after

1996 there were few publications by dissenting scientists. They still dissented,

but no one was listening any longer. It is important to note that during this

period, the technical aspects of the type of DNA profiling used at the time did

not change tremendously. The spectacular change in DNA profiling’s success

story was the constellation of new and stable social relations surrounding the

technology.

Quantifying Measurement Error: Making Judgment andInteraction Invisible

During the 1980s and early 1990s, DNA profiles were being interpreted

and matched in ‘‘liminal spaces,’’ which are transitional and transformative

states in which the values and norms of one stage have been left behind and

the values and norms of the later stage have not yet been reached (Knorr

Cetina 1999:63; Turner 1976:59–92). New norms, values, and consensus about

the technology had to be created to fill these liminal spaces in order for the

technology to achieve credibility and objectivity. There were no guidelines to

define what constituted anomalous or ambiguous results, and analysts’ interpre-

tations were conducted in complex environments where there were a ‘‘range of

potential (and reasonable) interpretations and little guidance in how to choose

among them’’ (Thompson and Ford 1991:110). Even within laboratories, there

was a high degree of ambiguity and personal variability in scoring the bands.

Determinations of matches were done visually, by eyeballing the distance

between the bands. Even when automated systems were developed, it was com-

mon to manually override machine scoring and placement (Thompson 1994:

264; Thompson and Ford 1991). Each practitioner, and eventually each labora-

tory, had to develop their own criteria for determining matches.

At this time DNA profiling lacked ‘‘disciplinary objectivity,’’ where it is

not assumed that all scientists agree about a particular phenomenon, but

‘‘instead takes consensus among the members of particular research communi-

ties as its standard of objectivity’’ (Megill 1991:301). Not only was there little

consensus among the members of the research community as to a standard of

adequate procedures and protocols, there was no consensus as to which

research community had jurisdiction over DNA profiling. Until the Castrocase, commercial laboratories and their employees proceeded in an ad hocfashion, creating what they needed as they went along.

As noted, the 1989 Castro double murder case exposed how, at that time,

DNA profiling was extremely dependent on local practices and subjective deci-

sions. Of particular concern in the case was the measurement of DNA fragment

lengths and associated measurement error. Lifecodes, the private company

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which had conducted the DNA tests for the trial, had not used its own quantita-

tive estimates of measurement error in declaring a match between suspect and

crime scene DNA, and thus its declaration of a ‘‘match’’ was questionable. The

trial brought to light that the private company’s methodologies were not open to

scientific scrutiny, and were treated as trade secrets (Derksen 2000).

During this time DNA profiling was performed using a procedure known

as single-locus restriction fragment length polymorphism. DNA fragments

appeared as faint bands on an autoradiograph, which is similar in appearance

to an X-ray. Analysts were generally concerned with at least two DNA sam-

ples—one from the ‘‘scene of the crime’’ and one from a suspect. The task

was to decide whether the DNA samples matched each other, thus potentially

identifying a guilty person, or exonerating an innocent one. Matching DNA

fragments should appear at approximately the same distance down the auto-

radiograph, but in different lanes. Due to many sources of variability in the

process, bands from the same source might not be exactly parallel on the auto-

rad. In each case, practitioners had to decide how close was ‘‘close enough’’

to say that two fragments match or do not match.

These early days before protocols and interpretations were stabilized to

provide a ‘‘window’’ to see how quantification helped to make individuals’

subjective judgments and evaluative statements invisible. This was a crucial

step in linking the micro and macro, because when human labor and judgments

are made invisible, and knowledge is expressed in quantitative form, the

knowledge can ‘‘travel’’ more easily outside the place of its making to become

part of other discourses. Quantification is one of the most important tasks of

scientific practice, because it transforms a knowledge claim from one which

originates in a specific place and time, to one which seems as if it could

come from anywhere (Porter 1992a:647, 1995).

The act of measurement, particularly of new entities, is one aspect of

scientific practice that is specifically directed toward creating, producing, and

constructing new meanings through the assignment of signs (numbers) to sym-

bols obtained from the physical manipulation of nature. This act is a produc-

tion of the new and novel—the varied activities which constitute measurement

have as their outcome new meanings, new signs, and new symbols. These new

meanings, and the stability of their application to features of the natural world,

come from human interaction, not from nature:

Meaning ... is not a direct function of the system, nor is it a quality of the sign ⁄ symbol;

rather it is a function and quality of the focus of psychic and emotional energy and particu-

lar aspects of the interaction process. Meaning does not abide in the symbol: the symbol acts

as a trigger for individuals and group to ‘remember’ and ‘reenact’ the meaning .... Nor does

meaning abide in the system. The function of the system is to stabilize agreed upon meaning

and reality (Allan 1995:58–59).


In this case, the new entity being measured was measurement error. A

quantitative estimate of how close was ‘‘close enough’’ for two bands to be

so that they could be declared as a ‘‘match’’ was answered by each labora-

tory determining and making public a quantity called the standard error of

measurement. This number, a distance between bands on an autoradiograph,

represented the ‘‘typical’’ or ‘‘average’’ range within which fragments from

two matching DNA samples might reasonably be expected to be, determined

from the laboratory’s experience and practice. The width of two standard

errors above and below the band became to be called a ‘‘match window’’

and was usually between 1.5 percent and 2.5 percent of fragment length.

Once this number was determined, practitioners could then say that a given

fragment matched (or not) if it fell inside or outside the length of the match

window. This number did not eliminate subjectivity and judgment from the

process of interpreting autorads and determining matches, but it did make

the subjective judgments invisible by having a number ‘‘stand for’’ them.

In the courtroom, DNA profiling had been subject to criticisms that as

evidence, it was based on subjective, biased, messy, fuzzy, local and arbitrary

practices, and judgments. Estimates of measurement error were critical in

establishing the legal admissibility of DNA evidence as they compensated for

the inevitable gap between theory and observation by specifying a stable limit

for a wide, but unspecifiable array of personal, subjective, and technical

sources of variability. This number, and others like it, helped DNA profiling

to bring order in courtrooms by allowing expert witnesses to speak ‘‘objec-

tively’’ about whether or not two fragments matched.

Measurement almost always involves contingent acts of judgment. Prac-

titioners must estimate ‘‘reasonable agreement’’ between the ideal and the

actual, or between theory and data (Kuhn 1977).2 When scientists are

observed in practice, it is clear that even apparently simple acts of ‘‘good’’

or ‘‘accurate’’ measurement are contingent, local achievements (Lynch 1991).

Successful quantification hides the representing subject, it hides subjective

judgments, and it renders judgment invisible. After the development of the

standard error of measurement in DNA profiling, when expert witnesses tes-

tified in courtrooms that two DNA fragment fell ‘‘within the match win-

dow,’’ the quantitative assertion made it appear to judges and juries that

there was no judgment or subjectivity involved in the decision. Because

numbers are a language which helps to coordinate the activities of geograph-

ically or culturally diverse groups, they ‘‘lend credibility to forms of belief

and action when personal trust is in short supply’’ (Porter 1992b). Quantifi-

cation does the sociological work of distancing a given knowledge claim

from the personal, geographical, intellectual, and social conditions in which

the claim is produced.

224 LINDA DERKSEN

Quantification is a crucial, but invisible link between the micro world of

the laboratory and the macro world of social order. Expressing properties of

the natural world as numbers is one of the most powerful ways to erase the

human labor of knowledge production. Quantification makes invisible the sub-

jective judgments, personal variability, and messiness of practice that are part

of normal scientific practice. Once numbers are seamlessly linked to properties

of the world, the knowledge claim is viewed as a fact, and is viewed as value-

free (Poovey 1998). Quantification is one step in the process of creating what

western cultures call objective scientific knowledge. Agency is erased, and the

number stands in for properties of nature (Derksen 2000).

In this section, I have highlighted aspects of how the development of one

number—the standard error of measurement—made the local, context, and

culture-bound human work of making DNA profiles invisible, and moved

knowledge claims about DNA profiling a huge step closer to being objective.

Measurement and measurement error became very important links between the

micro and the macro. Consensus about how to express the size of match win-

dows reduced ambiguity in determining matches, and helped DNA profiling to

attain credibility in the courtroom. More importantly, the ability to convert

DNA profiles into sets of numbers—molecular weights representing fragment

length, accurate to plus ⁄ minus two standard errors—meant that DNA profiles

could easily be stored in databanks, and shared between local, state, and

national criminal justice personnel. We will explore the significance of this in

the section below titled ‘‘Translations to Macro Structures.’’

Interaction, Knowledge, and Local Order: the FBI and TWGDAM

After the 1989 Castro case, the FBI was worried about the future of

DNA profiling as evidence, and called for the National Academy of Science

to convene a committee to investigate and solve the problems associated with

the technology. Under the auspices of the NRC, this committee began meeting

in 1989, and had its final meeting on December 21, 1991. The FBI also began

its own efforts to stabilize and standardize the technology, forming

TWGDAM, which brought together crime laboratory practitioners from across

the United States and Canada.

In the early years of DNA profiling, there was a high degree of interpre-

tive flexibility in DNA data, so much so that it was unlikely that any two

practitioners would agree on most, or all, aspects of the interpretation. For the

new technology to be useful in forensic settings, people had to be able to

agree on what DNA profiles represented. Partly to meet this need for stable

knowledge, the FBI set about to form a strong community of practice (Wenger

1998) consisting of crime laboratory practitioners from across the United

States and Canada. Another interest in creating a community of practice was


to standardize DNA profiling protocols among crime laboratories, which

would make possible the goal of forming a national DNA database of the

DNA of convicted felons. The database was dependent on crime laboratory

practitioners across the United States and Canada all doing DNA profiles in

the same way, which is a notoriously difficult feat (Berg 1997; Bowker and

Star 1999; Timmermans and Berg 1997).

With a virtually unlimited budget, and an extensive pre-existing formal

organizational structure, the FBI’s Forensic Science Research and Training

Center (FSRTC)3 in Quantico, Virginia invited the members of the crime labo-

ratory community from across the United States and Canada to seminars,

training sessions, and courses. They created TWGDAM, which met every

3 months.

The dynamics of agency and structure in the stabilization of knowledge

about DNA profiling are very clear in the history of TWGDAM. It began as a

loosely knit organization of crime laboratory directors who did not know each

other, who knew nothing about DNA or molecular biology, and who were

invited to Quantico at the FBI’s expense to learn about forensic DNA technol-

ogy. Over the next decade and a half, they became a tightly knit, highly

knowledgeable professional community of practice, whose knowledge became

entrenched in federal legislation.

At the outset, most members of TWGDAM had very little experience

with molecular biology, let alone DNA profiling, and they certainly had no

shared standards by which to interpret DNA profiles.4 The standards that

they achieved were ‘‘hammered out in TWGDAM meetings’’ (Newall

1999). The FBI provided a dedicated physical space which meant that

members could be together in a variety of social contexts including meals,

recreational settings, and sleeping accommodations. As the group of crime

laboratory practitioners met together repeatedly, they developed bonds of

collegiality and friendship, and began to trust each other’s skills and inter-

pretive abilities (Newall 1999, Personal interview; Kahn 1999, Personal

interview). From their local settings, they called each other for consulta-

tions on difficult profiles. They came to agree on how to interpret differ-

ences in DNA profiles, and how best to represent the new technology in

courtrooms.

Whether at Quantico or in their home crime laboratories, members of

TWGDAM were routinely involved in similar streams of practical activity,

replicating both the physical protocols and the interpretive technologies, which

are necessary for knowledge production (Barnes 1977; Shapin and Schaffer

1985:225). The frequent time together at Quantico allowed them to become

‘‘repositories of unconscious experience’’ and to develop an embodied sense

of what counted as a reasonable response to different situations (Knorr Cetina

226 LINDA DERKSEN

1992:119, 1999). Both of these are intrinsic parts of the culture of molecular

biology, where the practicing molecular biologist literally becomes a measure-

ment instrument: they become highly skilled at seeing things that others can-

not see, and their bodies learn to perform delicate operations in loading gels

and manipulating DNA that cannot be taught, only learned through watching,

trying, and erring.5 Most scientific knowledge cannot be transmitted from writ-

ten instructions alone, but requires face-to-face interaction (H. Collins 1974,

1985).

One example of the type of interaction that helped to create shared

interpretational conventions was called ‘‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.’’

At every meeting, TWGDAM members brought their worst and most diffi-

cult autorads and put them up on the wall for the group to look at. Group

members would try to identify the problem, determine where in the profiling

process it had occurred, and what the correct interpretation was. In early

1988 and 1989, people from different crime laboratories were very likely to

interpret the same autorad in different ways, and to argue vehemently for

the validity of their own interpretation. Over time, the group reached consen-

sus on what various common phenomena looked like. Initially, the group

with so little knowledge of DNA had to learn to determine just what marks

on an autorad represented bands of DNA, and what marks were artefacts of

the electrophoresis process (one of the steps in producing a DNA profile).

At the outset, there was widespread disagreement about how to interpret an

autorad, and a year later, and after a lot of interaction, argument, and hands-

on work, the group reached consensus about how to interpret a given auto-

rad. The individual members then went back to their distant laboratories and

transferred their newly acquired skills of seeing to members of their individ-

ual laboratories.

Eating, talking, working, and relaxing together created many opportuni-

ties for the kinds of interactions which are the ‘‘micro experience out of

which macro social structure is formed’’ (R. Collins 1988:402). Each social

encounter at Quantico, whether in a formal setting like ‘‘The Good, the

Bad and the Ugly,’’ or in an informal conversation over a meal, created

shared meanings between two or more people. These people were crime

laboratory specialists from across the United States and Canada, and thus

they had the cultural capital and ‘‘market opportunities’’ to take these

shared meanings and move them outward, into larger spheres of interactions

outside of Quantico. Randall Collins defines locally created structures which

arise from interaction as the ‘‘crucial nexus’’ of the micro–macro link

(R. Collins 1988:402).

This part of the story could have turned out very differently. In the

United States, small local areas, cities, counties, or states have jurisdiction


over different aspects of the criminal justice system. Had the FBI not invested

so much money and time into creating a community of professionals, each

county would have had to develop their own DNA profiling procedures. If this

was the case, it is likely that the private sector would have stepped in to fill

the gap, as small counties would not have had the resources to do the expen-

sive validation studies required by the courts. These types of studies were

required to prove to the courts that the form of DNA profiling that they were

proposing to use had been generally accepted in the scientific community. It is

possible that the larger counties, like Miami’s Dade County, would have

developed their own DNA profiling techniques. Dade County was the only

county in the United States that had a molecular biologist on staff shortly after

the discovery of DNA profiling, and was moving in the direction of setting up

its own DNA profiling laboratory when the invitation from the FBI to join

TWGDAM came in.

The FBI poured tremendous material and human resources into creating a

community of practice, which facilitated the diffusion of common (FBI) proto-

cols across the United States and Canada. Had this community not been cre-

ated, it is unlikely standardization of DNA profiling would have occurred. The

technology would have disseminated much more slowly, and probably not in a

standardized form (Newall 1999, Personal interview; Kahn 1999, Personal

interview; Deadman 1999, Personal interview). Because different laboratories

would have developed different protocols, used different reagents, and exam-

ined different loci, DNA profiles results from different laboratories would not

be comparable, and the usefulness of the technology in forensic settings would

have been very limited. A national DNA database would not have been

possible.

The standardization of DNA profiling as it occurred through the efforts

of the FBI and TWGDAM is an example of classification achieved through

distributed activity (Timmermans and Berg 1997). Timmermans and

Berg argue that ‘‘universality’’ has a certain tenuousness to it, and so they

label it ‘‘local universality’’ (Timmermans and Berg 1997:275). By applying

this label, they want to emphasize that ‘‘that universality always rests on

real-time work, and emerges from localized processes of negotiations and

pre-existing institutional, infrastructural, and material relations’’ (p. 275). In

the case of DNA profiling, for many practitioners, the only pre-existing

institutional and infrastructural relations they could draw upon were the

existence of their own crime laboratories. They came frequently to the

well-equipped laboratories at the FSRTC in Quantico, and returned to phys-

ical spaces and organizations that were ill-equipped to produce DNA

profiles.

228 LINDA DERKSEN

No Order, No Knowledge: The First NRC Committee on DNATechnology in Forensic Science

It is important to note that bringing people together to solve problems of

knowledge does not inevitably result in either stable knowledge or social

order. There were other efforts to bring epistemic closure to disputes surround-

ing DNA profiling. The most prominent was the National Research Council’s

first Committee on DNA Technology in Forensic Science (NRC 1992), con-

vened early in 1990 at the request of the FBI. Its task was to resolve statistical

and ethical issues that were arising over the forensic use of DNA typing. The

committee had many difficult tasks, one of which was to come up with a pro-

cedure for correctly calculating random match probabilities (the probability

that a given DNA profile could belong to someone else in the population).

The committee was composed of blue ribbon members of the scientific and

legal communities, but it had a weak chairperson, and two very strong, deeply

opposed members of equally high academic prestige. It was highly politicized,

highly polarized and deeply troubled, and meetings were virtually a ‘‘war of

all against all’’ (Derksen 2003:175). One committee member was a strong

advocate of the FBI’s methodology, another was deeply suspicious of the tech-

nology (Lewontin 1997, personal interview).

Reaching consensus about the best science, the best way to calculate the

random match probabilities, and the best way for the forensic community to

proceed to use the DNA technology involved extended negotiations among

committee members. During the committee’s tenure, there were a number of

breaches of confidentiality and backstage maneuverings, including the leaking

of one chapter of the report to the FBI. One member resigned early in the

committee’s process, another was forced to resign on the eve of the final

report, and the remaining members reluctantly signed off on the report (Kolata

1992a, 1992b; Lempert 1997). In April 1992, the entire report was leaked to

the press before it was printed, resulting in an overnight rush to print the doc-

ument. However, the academic, legal, and forensic communities had already

seen 2 years of in-fighting and squabbling from the committee, and were

primed to critique their findings.

This first committee failed to establish trust and working order among

themselves. Their inability to get along with each other meant that they were

unable to establish the types of consensus that result in credible knowledge.6

The lack of consensus on the committee translated into a report which was

met with a barrage of criticism (Cohen 1992; Devlin, Risch, and Roeder 1993;

Weir 1993). The FBI felt the ‘‘new rules’’ recommended by the committee

would make it impossible to declare that two DNA samples matched. Other


angry groups included academic population geneticists and statisticians, who

had not been included on the committee.

In April 1993, Judge William Sessions, then director of the FBI,

requested that the National Academy of Sciences convene a second committee

to resolve the statistical controversies. The second committee was handpicked

to get along with each other (Fischer 1997, personal interview) but its report

was not released until 1996 (National Research Council 1996). The criminal

justice community could not wait that long for the NRC to ‘‘solve’’ the prob-

lems with DNA profiling, and so other groups in other social worlds filled the

liminal voids.

Translations to Macro Structure

One of the most interesting aspects of the history of DNA profiling in

the United States is that stabilization of the technology took place across a

variety of social worlds (Clarke 1990, 1991). While the scientists were at

war with each other, and during the time that the National Research Coun-

cil convened two committees to ‘‘solve’’ the problems with DNA profiling,

the FBI and TWGDAM—which had become a community of practice—qui-

etly solved many technical and interpretational problems around DNA pro-

filing. By 1991, they had reached consensus on most problems of

interpretation, simplified protocols, and published quality assurance guide-

lines and proficiency guidelines. As TWGDAM members transferred their

new knowledge to their own crime laboratories across the United States

and Canada, knowledge surrounding the technology became more stable.

Figures 2 and 3 provide a schematic of the micro ⁄ macro translations dis-

cussed in this section.

1994 DNA Identification Act

In 1994—the year that the second NRC committee began to meet—the

DNA Identification Act was passed (Public Law 103 322).7,8 This act

provided money for any jurisdiction which wanted to develop DNA testing

laboratories, but it made funding contingent on the adoption TWDGAM’s

protocols, proficiency and quality assurance guidelines (TWGDAM 1989,

1991). The legislation further stabilized the knowledge claims by tying

needed material and institutional resources to particular knowledge comm-

unities and forms of scientific practice. The act literally brought order to the

crime laboratory community by giving formal policing powers to TWGDAM

and the newly professionalized ASCLD.9 The DNA Identification Grants

Act also authorized the Laboratory Division of the ASCLD (ASCLD-LAB)

to accredit DNA laboratories across the country, including the FBI’s

laboratory.

Figure 2Micro–Macro Translations in DNA Profiling, 1988–1994.

230 LINDA DERKSEN

The legislation is a form of rational-legal structure, which provided a

necessary mechanism for standardization: legal enforcement (Bowker and

Star 1999:13) coupled with material resources. It also helped to legitimate

the technology in the courtroom, where clever lawyers used the reports sub-

mitted by expert witnesses in high profile cases in high-ranking courts, such

as the Yee appeal, in which the judge had ruled in favor of the FBI’s proto-

cols and against the criticisms of prestigious scientists opposed to the tech-

nology (United States V. John Ray Bonds, Mark Verdi and Steven Wayne

Yee 1993).

Dissolved in the act’s recommendation that TWGDAM’s standards

govern DNA profiling at the national level are all the interactions of TWG-

DAM members between 1988 and 1994, as they learned to read and inter-

pret DNA profiles, and as they simplified and standardized DNA profiling

protocols. Just 6 years after they began to meet, the informal social struc-

tures of interpretation developed between members of TWGDAM had been

translated into formal, legislated standards of quality control and qual-

ity assurance. Between 1988 and 1994, TWGDAM members attained such

professional credibility that this community which previously had lacked

Figure 31994–2001 Proliferation of Formal, Macro Social Structures and

Micro ⁄ Macro Translations.


any knowledge of DNA was given the power to advise and oversee all

aspects of the forensic application of DNA profiling in the United States.

This transformation of TWGDAM is an example of the translation of

knowledge created through individual interactions into formal social

structure.

DNA Advisory Board

Other formal social structures were also brought into existence in the

1994 DNA Identification Act, including the DNA Advisory Board, which

was administered and headed by the director of the FBI (Federal Bureau of

Investigation 2000; Eisenberg 1999). The board’s mandate from Congress

was to rationalize the process of DNA profiling as much as possible by

making sure that any new federally funded DNA laboratories adopted the

FBI ⁄ TWGDAM procedures for making and interpreting DNA profiles. In this

way TWGDAM and the FBI became ‘‘obligatory passage points’’ (Callon

1986) for DNA profiling—to get federal funding, new laboratories had to do

it the FBI’s way.

232 LINDA DERKSEN

National DNA databank

The 1994 DNA Identification Act also legislated the creation of a

national DNA databank (National DNA Indexing System) which contains sev-

eral different databases of DNA profiles, including those of offenders con-

victed of violent crimes.10 Each participating state creates and maintains a

Combined DNA Indexing System (CODIS) database, and the FBI provides,

free of charge, all software installation, personnel training, and support for the

CODIS system. The National DNA Indexing System became operational in

1998. By then, all 50 states had passed legislation allowing or requiring the

collection of DNA samples from convicted felons. As of 2008, 170 law

enforcement agencies across the United States participated in CODIS, and

more than 40 law enforcement laboratories in 25 countries used the CODIS

software for their own DNA databanks. ‘‘Success’’ for CODIS is defined as an

‘‘investigation aided’’ which is ‘‘hit,’’ or a match between two DNA profiles

that would not have occurred otherwise. As of February 2007, CODIS had

produced over 45,400 hits and assisted in more than 46,300 investigations

(Federal Bureau of Investigation 2007, 2007a).

CODIS is an information infrastructure (Bowker and Star 1999:6), a new

system of individual classification which exists as numbers stored in a system

of computer databases that link participating Unites States and international

databases relatively seamlessly. It is a formal, rationalized, macro social struc-

ture which brings into relation many individuals across a large expanse of

space. There are a vast number of social relationships required for CODIS to

work. Law enforcement agents must collect the evidence properly, a pristine

chain of custody must be maintained, and technicians in laboratories across

the country must follow the FBI ⁄ TWGDAM protocols for producing DNA

profiles closely enough so that the profiles are comparable with those produced

in other laboratories. DNA profiles are stored in CODIS as sets of numbers,

molecular weights of convicted offenders’ DNA fragments, accurate within

the accepted error standards discussed in the ‘‘Quantifying Measurement

Error’’ section above. The information is stored as immutable numbers, which

endure through time without degradation. Dissolved within these objective

numbers are the subjective judgments of practitioners, the messiness of prac-

tice, and interpretational flexibility. The knowledge and practical politics of

classification and standardization dissolved within CODIS resulted in a system

of surveillance and control, justified to the public as a something which helps

to protect them from violent criminals.

Recall that Randall Collins argues that ‘‘[t]he macro structure exists

only as the aggregation of micro situations in space, across time, and in

the number of situations of various kinds and of people who take part in


them’’ (R. Collins 1988:396, emphasis added). As a macro structure,

CODIS is not only the ‘‘aggregation of micro situations in space….’’ It also

has material existence, and its authority and legitimation come from formal

written rules.

Is the existence of NDIS and CODIS a story of FBI power and hege-

mony? Absolutely.11 And whether that is deemed to be good or bad, it is

important to see that the social structures of NDIS and CODIS are the

outcome of knowledge production: the successful standardization and stabiliza-

tion of DNA profiling protocols and methods and the successful erasure of all

the situated human labor and interaction involved in its creation.

National Commission on the Future of DNA Evidence; the DNA AnalysisBacklog Elimination Act; the Paul Coverdell Forensic Sciences ImprovementAct, and the Innocence Protection Act

Through the late 1990s forensic DNA technology continued to become

more entwined in the fabric of the criminal justice system and the wider soci-

ety, as more and more formal bodies came into being to deal with different

aspects of the technology. Each formal body and each act of legislation further

legitimated the technology. In 1998 then Attorney General Janet Reno com-

missioned the National Commission on the Future of DNA Evidence with a

mandate to work at the interface of science and the law to maximize the value

of DNA evidence, particularly with regard to incarcerated individuals that

might be exonerated by DNA evidence (Leary 2000). Members were drawn

from law enforcement, defense and prosecution lawyers, the National Acad-

emy, trial and appellate judges, victim advocates, laboratory personnel,

ethicists, and academic and forensic scientists. This Commission recommended

that post-conviction DNA testing be permitted in the cases in which was

deemed to be appropriate. In 2000, Congress passed the DNA Analysis Back-

log Elimination Act and the Paul Coverdell Forensic Sciences Improvement

Act, which together authorized an additional $908,000,000 over 6 years for

forensic DNA-related grants.

In direct response, Congress passed the Innocence Protection Act of 2001

to reduce the risk that innocent persons may be executed by making funding

available for post-conviction DNA testing in Federal and State systems. The

act notes that through the use of DNA testing, more than 80 people had been

exonerated in post-conviction hearings, including 10 individuals on death row,

some who were within days of execution.

The Innocence Project

The first Innocence Project was co-founded by Barry Scheck and Peter

Neufeld, who were defense counsel in the 1989 Castro murder case, and who

234 LINDA DERKSEN

wholeheartedly spearheaded efforts to de-rail the technology in its early years.

Scheck and Neufeld were also lobbyists for the Innocence Protection Act,

which legislated that the government pay for DNA tests which could prove an

inmates’ innocence (Chebium 2000:2). The first Innocence Project was at the

Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University in New York City,

and as a national organization it continues to be housed there. The Cardozo

Innocence Project relied on the volunteer labor of law students and attorneys,

who reviewed thousands of cases from incarcerated people who claim that

they have been wrongfully convicted, usually of rape or murder. When appro-

priate, the Innocence Project arranged for DNA tests that might help to sup-

port their claim of innocence. The Innocence Project has grown to become a

national organization dedicated to using DNA testing to exonerate those who

have been wrongfully convicted (Innocence Project 2008). As of July 2008,

218 persons had been exonerated of crimes they did not commit, more than

half of whom were African American.

Conclusion

At the micro level, human beings, in interaction with each other and with

nature, create, assign, and produce meanings to ⁄ for properties of nature.

Because this is done through the interaction of situated human actors, making

new meaning involves human agency, but not absolute, unconstrained agency.

The decisions taken during the knowledge production process are decisions

constrained by pre-existing and emergent structures, norms, and practices, and

by the ‘‘resistance’’ of the physical world (Pickering 1993, 1995). Science is

an activity where novelty is highly prized—and scientists are in the business

of establishing new relationships between signs and referents. When this is

done successfully, and all traces of the maker are hidden, the outcome is an

objective scientific knowledge. The institution of science is a master at cloak-

ing, hiding, and erasing the conditions of the production of knowledge, and it

does not give up its social origins easily.

The portions of the history of DNA profiling covered in the article pro-

vide examples of how knowledge, order, and social structures produced at the

micro level were translated into macro social structures. In the early stages

(1988–1992), most of the structures were informal, taking the form of consen-

sus among individuals and groups. As the knowledge and group structures

became more stable, they were both taken up, and translated into more formal

agreements and social structures. New meanings became shared with wider

groups of people, helping them to become more stable. TWGDAM attained

such credibility that both the knowledge it had helped to stabilize, and its own

group status as arbiters of that knowledge, were entrenched in formal legisla-

tion. As more formal structures were formed which utilized knowledge about


DNA profiling, the more stable the epistemic and ontological status of DNA

testing became.

Some of the structures formed during the stabilization of DNA profiling

were meant to be permanent, such as CODIS and TWGDAM; and some

played a transitory, but important role in the stabilization process, such as the

DNA Advisory Board and the National Commission on the Future of DNA

Evidence. The creation of new social structures and the institutionalization of

new forms of knowledge is particularly important because once institutions

are formed, they tend to persist. Embedding knowledge about DNA profiling

in the formal social order also stabilized the epistemic status of that same

knowledge. As Weber argued, laws and legislation are perhaps our most

formal structures. They are created in assemblies of elected officials, they

are enforced in courts of law, and they are inextricably bound up with the

ideas which we hold to be true about the natural world, and the groups which

created that knowledge.

ENDNOTES

*I would like to thank Kenneth Allan, Chantelle Marlor, and Jane Camerini for helping to

clarify my thinking about the issues covered in this article. Please direct correspondence to Linda

Derksen, Ph.D., Chair, Department of Sociology, Vancouver Island University, 900-5th Street,

Nanaimo, BC, Canada V9R 5S5; e-mail: [email protected] my purpose in this article is to use a case study to explicate a theoretical process

involving micro ⁄ macro links, many other SSK studies do the same kind of work. Studies of this

type cover many fields, such as the interface of government, science, and the law (Cole 1998;

Jasanoff 1990, 1995); the development of expertise among AIDS treatment activists and their

effects in changing clinical trial protocols (Epstein 1996); the social processes by which expert

advice is successfully (or not) produced and sustained (Hilgartner 2000). Other important studies

show how the development of standards and classification shapes our world (Bowker and Star

1999; Lampland and Star 2009), including the new medical ‘‘gold standard,’’ evidence-based medi-

cine (Timmermans and Berg 2003).2Thomas Kuhn argues that there is always an ineradicable gap, or a variable amount of

‘‘error’’ between the values predicted by a theory and those measured in practice (Kuhn

1977:182).3The FSRTC had a mandate to ‘‘develop methods that can help resolve or define or charac-

terize evidence found in crime scenes’’ (Budowle 1997). The FSRTC also had a mandate for train-

ing, education, and acting as an information source for the crime laboratory community. The FBI

had its own in-house publication to disseminate information across the entire forensic laboratory

community, the Crime Laboratory Digest, published in affiliation with the forensic community’s

professional association, the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors (ASCLD).4The FBI’s own research team was composed of six people with Ph.D.s and three or four

biological science technicians. Other than the head of the training center, Dr. Bruce Budowle,

members of the FBI team had to be trained in the required molecular biology techniques. When

TWGDAM was formed, the only people with expertise in the interpretation of DNA profiles were

236 LINDA DERKSEN

the newly trained members of the FBI’s Forensic Science Research and Training Centre, two peo-

ple from the Royal Candian Mounted Police (RCMP) (John Waye and Ron Fourney), and Dade

County’s Roger Kahn.5In her book, Epistemic Cultures, Knorr Cetina (1999) shows that different sciences have dif-

ferent cultures of knowing. Based on extensive ethnographic research into the social worlds of

high-energy physics and molecular biology, Knorr Cetina shows that each science has a specific

culture of knowledge production. She contrasts the epistemic cultures of the two sciences by argu-

ing that in molecular biology, the individual scientist becomes the measurement instrument: their

bodies become highly trained in manipulating instruments and their vision becomes increasingly

disciplined over the course of a career. The individual biography of a particular scientist will

affect their skill set and their modes of interpretation. In contrast, in high-energy physics, the

group is the unit that conducts experiments—individual physicists have little to do with a particu-

lar experiment, and thus the biographical experience, or the tacit bodily knowledge of any given

scientist is irrelevant. Experiments may take years and involve hundreds of people. And, perhaps

most importantly, individual scientists are not able to see or interpret the results of an experiment.

All interpretation is done by computer. She finds no evidence for a common scientific method, but

much evidence for vastly different epistemic cultures—each science has its own epistemological

conventions and rules.6See also Hilgartner (2000) for another example of a National Academy of Science commit-

tee which failed to achieve order among themselves. In a committee on diet and health, there was

such bitter dispute on the committee that the Chairman of the National Academy of Sciences can-

celed the publication of the final report. Hilgartner uses Goffman’s dramaturgical theory to frame

his analysis. He claims that in 1 successful reports, the National Academy committees successfully

maintained a divide between the backstage where negotiation, compromise and dissensus thrived,

and the frontstage where consensus reigns supreme. On the frontstage, the panels of blue ribbon

experts self consciously present themselves and the advising body as competent, credible, knowl-

edgeable, and trustworthy. Hilgartner argues that when this process is successful, it results in the

production of credible science advice.7While it is beyond the scope of this article to trace the individual interactions which led to

the passing of this act, it is safe to assume that like the other social structures in this article, this

act originated from many micro level interactions.8Perhaps reflecting a concern that previously convicted persons not be targeted by law

enforcement agencies, or that the DNA of convicted felons be put to eugenic-like uses, the

DNA Identification Grants Improvement Act of 1995 amended the 1994 act in a way that would

avoid the potential scapegoating of specific categories of individuals. The amendment explicitly

forbids the use of DNA profiles stored in DNA databanks to be used to ‘‘formulate statistical

profiles for use in predicting criminal behavior’’ (p. 2). I believe the concern motivating the

amendment was the protection of individual privacy, and to protect individuals who had a DNA

profile in the databank from being pre-emptively categorized or being identified as being at high

risk for recidivism.9A latent effect of the process of stabilizing knowledge about DNA profiling is the profes-

sionalization (Abbott 1988) of the crime laboratory community, with the jurisdiction to self-police

through the American Association of Crime Laboratory Directors.10Combined DNA Indexing System (CODIS) contains several different sets of profiles,

including a convicted offender database, a forensic database of unknown DNA profiles collected

from crime scenes, a database of arrested persons (if state law permits), a missing persons

database, a database of DNA from unidentified human remains, and a database of DNA profiles

contributed voluntarily by relatives of missing persons (Federal Bureau of Investigation 2008).


11The FBI provides, free of charge, all software for CODIS, along with installation, training,

and support. As noted above, federal grant money for the creation and development of DNA labo-

ratories is tied to the following FBI protocols and quality assurance standards.

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Micro/Macro Translations: The creation of new social structures in the case of DNA Profiling

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