Vast Expansion of DNA Testing in the Future
A little-noticed amendment to a January 2006 Congressional renewal of the Violence Against Women Act authorized DNA collection from anyone under criminal arrest by the federal authorities, and also from illegal immigrants arrested by federal agents (www.house.gov; New York Times February 5, 2007).
The analysis of DNA evidence has emerged as a very important tool in law enforcement. By analyzing selected DNA sequences, a forensic laboratory can develop a profile in identifying a person from a DNA sample. DNA can be extracted from hair, bone, teeth, saliva, and blood. The collection process may be as simple as a placing a Q-tip inside the mouth to obtain saliva. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) started its DNA database in 1988. Since then the FBI has standardized DNA analysis and they are stored in the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System (CODIS). The FBI reported that more than 8,000 DNA samples taken from the scenes of unresolved crimes have been matched with samples taken from inmates after their imprisonment.
FBI currently receives about 96,000 DNA samples per year. The officials expect that the number to increase to 250,000 to as many as 1 million samples per year. The goal is to make the practice of DNA sampling as routine as fingerprinting for anyone detained by federal agents.
Last year 1.2 million illegal immigrants were detained by the federal officials. Immigration lawyers reacted negatively about the new measure. They warned that the new law would make it difficult for the immigrants to remove their DNA profile from the federal database, even if they were never found to have committed any crime. Other groups have warned that the measure would compound already severe backlogs in the FBI’s DNA processing.
Lynn Parish from the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network welcomed the initiative and commented, “If this had been done years ago, it could have prevented many crimes.”
Recently, a Congressional bill entitled “Save our children: stop the violent predators against children DNA act of 2007” (HR 252) was introduced by Sheila Jackson-Lee of Texas. The objective is to establish and maintain a separate database solely for the purpose of collecting DNA information with respect to violent predators against children.
Currently, the proposed bill is under house judiciary committee review.
