The Forensic Sciences (21071)

Year: 2nd
Term: 3rd
Number of ECTS credits: 6
Student hours: 150

Syllabus

The forensic sciences are useful for criminologists from two main perspectives, which are precisely what this course aims to examine:

a) External. A better understanding of the working and development of the criminal justice system involves having basic notions of the role of the forensic sciences, which is to say, of the application of science and technology to police and legal investigation, especially with regard to evidence. This means acquiring some knowledge of the scientific aspect of the forensic sciences: their nature, methods and most conspicuous manifestations, and also of the legal framework which conditions their practice and the validity of their findings.

b) Internal. When criminological knowledge is applied to specific cases to enlighten illustrate and advise legal experts in their decision-making, criminology becomes a forensic science, forensic criminology. In effect, criminology can be helpful in police work (in criminal profiling, for example), during trials (via expert criminological reports) and while the sentence is being served. The aim here is not to acquire knowledge to be applied to specific cases (this is dealt with on other Criminology degree courses) but to learn about the legal framework within which the practical application of criminology is necessarily carried out and how to fulfil the formal and material requirements that this involves.

- Contents section 1: Introduction

  1. Introduction: the forensic sciences, criminal investigation, and forensic criminology.
  2. Fundamental characteristics of the investigation of crime and criminal proceedings.
  3. Institutional organisation of investigation and forensic evidence.

- Contents section 2. Legal aspects of investigation and forensic evidence

  1. Evidence in criminal proceedings. Expert reports and evidence.
  2. Legal regime and constitutional limits to investigation and forensic evidence.
  3. Ethical-legal challenges in the sciences and forensic investigation.
  4. Scientific knowledge's problems of access to criminal proceedings.

- Contents section 3. Forensic Criminology

  1. Applying criminological knowledge to specific cases.
  2. Criminological experts. Other reports in criminal proceedings.
  3. Criminological reports while the sentence is being served, in juvenile criminal law and other sectors.
  4. Structure of criminological reports: subject, object and ends. Producing criminological reports.
  5. Criminology's contribution to criminal investigation: criminal profiling.

- Contents section 4. The forensic sciences

  1. Science as a tool in criminal investigation and criminal proceedings: the forensic sciences.

  2. The nature and method of the sciences and forensic investigation.

- Contents section 5. Forensic medicine, psychiatry and psychology

  1. Legal and forensic medicine
  2. Forensic psychiatry
  3. Forensic psychology

- Contents section 6. Other forensic sciences

  1. Forensic biology.
  2. Forensic chemistry: drugs and toxicology and other related areas.
  3. Other areas of the forensic sciences and criminal investigation: fingerprinting, computing, linguistics, graphology, etc.
  4. New frontiers: neurosciences and other contributions from behavioural biology.