US police may soon have the cash they need to accelerate their DNA fingerprinting efforts, courtesy of the federal government.
A new bill in Congress provides over US$45 million in federal funds to spur police into taking more DNA samples and using them in criminal investigations.
The FBI in late 1998 finished constructing a massive DNA database with about a million entries, but local and state police have a backlog of samples taken from criminal suspects and crime scenes and have been slow in adding them to the system.
Rep. Benjamin Gilman (R-NY) hopes to change this. His proposal, cosponsored by Jim Ramstad (R-Minn) and Bart Stupak (D-Mich), allows the Justice Department to write checks to state and local police forces so they can buy "state-of-the-art testing methods."
Gilman's bill expands the database to allow samples to be taken not just from adults convicted of criminal offenses, but also from minors guilty of "acts of juvenile delinquency." It also includes violent criminals in the District of Columbia.
"The legislation will give money to states to get caught up with the DNA registry," a spokesman for Gilman said. "The problem is there have been so many DNA samples."
Privacy advocates charge that collecting more information is unwise.
"The problem is that a great deal of the backlog is caused by a number of these states demanding DNA samples from just about everyone. A number of states -- Louisiana and New York -- are moving toward collecting DNA samples from every single individual arrested, no matter how minor the crime," says David Banisar, co-author of the Electronic Privacy Papers.
"[You shouldn't] give them endless pots of money to do this. Politicians are afraid of doing the right thing for fear of looking soft on crime," Banisar said.
If the bill becomes law, anyone in prison, on parole, or on probation who's guilty of certain serious crimes must give DNA samples to the police -- if they haven't already -- or be found guilty or a misdemeanor. The measure allows "the use of such means as are necessary to restrain and collect a DNA sample from an individual who refuses to cooperate in the collection of the sample."
DNA carries each individual's unique genetic code. Samples taken from blood -- the most common method -- or other body fluids can be used to match suspects to evidence at crime scenes.
The FBI's Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) is a huge database that -- as of its launch in October 1998 -- was installed in 94 laboratories in 41 states and Washington DC. The National DNA Index is part of CODIS and records information submitted by participating states.
A 1994 law called the DNA Identification Act allows the FBI to include information about people convicted of crimes, samples recovered from crime scenes, and samples recovered from unidentified human remains.
Another bill, HR3087, includes a similar provision. It gives the Justice Department $30 million to eliminate the database backlog.
In April, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) introduced a bill to limit federal DNA databases.
