May 11, 2026

Call for contributions

Title: Forensic Science: Oxymoron or Paradigm Shift?
Guest Editors: Frank Crispino, Vincent Mousseau, and Maxime Bérubé

As early as 1963, Paul Leland Kirk — a chemist, microscopist involved in the Manhattan Project, and director of the criminology program established at Berkeley in 1937 by August Vollmer — questioned the foundations of the sciences and techniques mobilized in support of investigations and justice: “Where is criminalistics, forensic science, or whatever it may be, going?” (Kirk, 1963).

In the late 1990s, Pierre Patenaude, a law professor and prominent Canadian jurist, examined the Quebec terminology science judiciaire (“forensic science”) (Patenaude 1997, 1998, 2000, 2003), which he considered close to an oxymoron, arguing that law is not scientific and science is not legal. ...

THEMES

We invite contributions on the following themes (this list is indicative only):

• Current state of the field and critical analysis of practice
• Trace evidence as a scientific object
• Semantic or conceptual evolution?
• Evolution of service models
• Evolution of the discipline
• Forensic science and digital transformations
• Trace evidence and investigation
• Trace evidence and justice
• Standardization, accreditation, and certification
• From trace to evidence
• Interpretation or meaning?
• The future of forensics or traceology
• Institutional and academic challenges

SUBMITTING AN ARTICLE PROPOSAL

To propose a contribution for this thematic issue, please send the authors’ names, affiliations, and contact information to frank.crispino@uqtr.ca.

Your proposal must also include a title and an abstract in French between 250 and 500 words. The deadline for submitting proposals is July 20, 2026.

Authors whose proposals are accepted will then have until October 19, 2026 to submit the first complete version of their manuscript. Manuscripts will subsequently undergo peer review. Revised versions must be submitted no later than April 12, 2027, for publication in Criminologie in Fall 2027.

More details.