During the last decade, DNA samples have become a popular tool of criminologists to find and prove the criminal behavior of an individual. The FBI collected DNA in its agency since 1990 (Siegal et al 2000). The FBI professionals suppose that DNA analysis allows finding a partially individual and there is no other individual in the United States other than the person who could have left the blood or hair follicles at the scene of a crime. Similar practices are introduced by the UK police which collects the DNA of Juveniles involved in crime. The proposed methods have advantages and opportunities for police and law enforcement agencies to find a criminal and prove his guilt, but these practices violate the privacy and constitutional rights of an individual.
The main advantage of DNA collection is that it allows creating a large database and finding a person in a short period of time. In the USA, the states have DNA databases, keeping known samples from violent criminals who are imprisoned or who are being released from jail, and those agencies share their databases with the FBI Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (VICAP) server. The advantage of this approach is that a violent criminal who rapes or kills will be found immediately despite his geographic location. In some states, it is not required to get samples, because every convicted juvenile and criminal gives blood and saliva samples upon entering jail, which is DNA typed (Fisher 2000).
The data about DNA is stored in the state’s computerized criminal justice servers. DNA data is a part of the FBI’s NCIC records; so the FBI centrally kept DNA data for those states for which it now holds other criminal data, and, for those states for which it does not hold such data, Researchers suppose that increasing number of DNA samples will help criminal justice system to direct queries to the proper record system (Bowers, 1995).
The advantage of the DNA database and the international database is that it will help countries to control criminal behavior and identify a person. The issue of prior conviction constitutes possible cause for law enforcement to get court orders to do blood tests on perhaps dozens or even hundreds of people. The police force should have determined through their examination that there is some touchable connection between an individual and an incident before they can get a warrant to search a person’s property—and, by extension, his or her fingerprints or body fluid. In this situation, the DVA database will help to simplify this process and find a person without his permission to search blood (Fisher 2000).
The facts against the DNA database and retaining the DNA for other juveniles who were never charged or convicted of an offense are that DNA tests are not perfect and trustworthy. Despite great changes in science and forensic science, there are a lot of errors and mistakes in DNA tests. Retaining the DNA for other juveniles who were never charged or convicted of an offense can lead to terrible outcomes: a conviction and imprisonment of an innocent person.
Also, any investigation can damage and ruin a reputation of an innocent accused in a crime. Regardless of how good or bad the DNA evidence is in any criminal case, the use of ever more sophisticated scientific methods in the name of justice raises large troubling issues: If there is a scientific technique for extracting data about an individual from his body, when is it lawful to use that technique, and when does use that technique constitute an abuse of Fourth Amendment rights to be free from unwarranted search and seizure, and Fifth Amendment rights not to incriminate oneself (Bowers, 1995).
The second problem is that retaining the DNA for juveniles who were never charged or convicted of an offense will lead to an increased number of criminal cases aimed to protect the privacy rights and freedoms of individuals. The questions will be connected with such issues as How much and what kind of data is kept about U.S. people? It is apparent that some individuals are in jail because of bad investigations done in the name of criminal justice: bad laboratory trials exculpatory evidence suspended from a defendant because of social and political pressure to gain convictions; and criminal evidence that is far from certain, but which has been protected convincingly by criminal justice professionals. More appalling than these casual actions by professionals of the criminal justice system are instances of willful falsification of evidence (Fisher 2000).
A national database of DNA can become a trade-off. Therefore, crime will be lessened, wrong convictions might be made easier, and positive recognition would be improved, but on the other hand, such a “universal identifier” will create a civil-liberties problem. Regardless of notification on papers that the Social Security number is not to be used for identification aims, it is used in such a way widely—for instance, on driver’s licenses, school records, and medical accounts. This identifier can be used to compare and match computerized accounts by legislative agencies to create lists of persons who fit a number of criteria—the creation of computer profiles (Rainis, 2003; Siegal et al 2000).
The problem is that any employees of such agencies will surely have access to personal information and networking equipment, so this employee will be able to call up information about an individual from dozens of federal agencies just by flagging a name or security number, such confidential data as DNA and criminal convictions Beyond administration, these records can be used by insurance organizations, credit-checking agencies, and marketing companies (Bowers, 1995).
The problems created by the abuse of rights and privacy issues will exceed the benefits and opportunities proposed by DNA databases. The intrusion in privacy and the detriments to personal rights from being able to recognize people through DNA is sensitive to type parts of hair, saliva, and even finger oils. Persons handing out leaflets for causes or supporting candidates, or otherwise involved in innocuous and completely legal activities, could be recognized and harassed (Rainis, 2003).
Other ways of searching and identifying individuals raise the same terrifying questions. DNA sampling is an outgrowth of a medical investigation into finding genetic markers on DNA, alerting professionals that people carry the predisposition to certain diseases. Though particular environmental conditions may change the onset of such an illness, often a person’s genetic makeup predisposes the individual to the disease. The same mistakes can occur when the police will try to find a person using his DNA samples (Kubic and Petraco 2003).
The best approach to solve this problem is that a universal DNA database should include not only a DNA fingerprint of a person for identification, but also information about hyper-susceptibilities. Again, this process will lead to violation of individual rights because such information will be used by business and government and insurance companies to monitor employees, soldiers, public officials, and policyholders.
The main problem of retaining the DNA for other juveniles who were never charged or convicted of an offense is a problem of data control and data integrity. The case described by Rainis (2003) depicts the proof has been presented at trial, and the jury supposes both the laboratory science and the population statistics, which say that the possibility that this DNA belongs to someone else is 1 in 1 billion. The defense lawyer, feeling besieged, turns to one last avenue to keep his client out of jail—the claim that this individual is not evil (Rainis, 2003). To make this argument, the defense probably would depend on an expert forensic specialist who comes from the philosophical position that intervals who commit weird and cruel crimes are not normal or sane. Thus, DNA was not taken into account because of lack of supportive evidence and facts presented to the court (Kubic and Petraco 2003).
In sum, collection of DNA samples from citizens will violate their rights and abuse constitutional doctrine of freedom. The examples mentioned above prove that the court’s decision is an early chip taken out of the doctrine of possible cause, which requires law enforcement to develop evidence linking a particular individual to a particular crime before they can go before a judge to seek search or arrest warrants. Situation with DNA shows that prior conviction for an offense surely would constitute an individual fitting the profile of an offender, and law enforcement almost certainly could compel convicted offenders to give body-fluid samples under the new doctrine of reasonable suspicion.
The ability to create DNA profiles—and for the law enforcement to act on them—makes it promising to conduct mass roundups of certain kinds of citizens, based on very limited evidence of any wrongdoing. If the DNA database is created, a Supreme Court will not able to stop searches, and arrests based merely on reasonable suspicion because an individual meets the) somewhat subjective criteria.
References
Bowers, M.C. (1995). Manual of Forensic Odontology. Forensic Pr.
Fisher, B. A. J. (2000) Techniques of Crime Scene Investigation, 6th edn, CRC Press.
Kubic, TH., Petraco, N. (2003). Forensic Science Laboratory Manual and Workbook, Revised Edition. CRC; 2 edition.
Rainis, K. G. (2003). Blood and DNA Evidence: Crime-Solving Science Experiments (Forensic Science Projects). Enslow Publishers.
Siegal et al. (eds), (2000). Encyclopaedia of Forensic Sciences, Academic Press, London.