US Police Departments With Their Own DNA Databases Stir Debate
US POLICE AGENCIES WITH THEIR OWN DNA DATABASES STIR
DEBATE
BY MICHAEL BALSAMO Mar 4, 11:20 AM EST
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Dozens of police departments around
the U.S. are amassing their own DNA databases to track criminals, a move
critics say is a way around regulations governing state and national databases
that restrict who can provide genetic samples and how long that information is
held.
The local agencies create the rules for their databases,
in some cases allowing samples to be taken from children or from people never
arrested for a crime. Police chiefs say having their own collections helps them
solve cases faster because they can avoid the backlogs that plague state and
federal repositories.
Frederick Harran, the public safety director in Bensalem
Township, Pennsylvania, was an early adopter of a local database. Since it was
created in 2010, he said robberies and burglaries have been gone down due to
arrests made because of the DNA collection.
Harran said the Pennsylvania state lab takes up to 18
months to process DNA taken from a burglary scene but with the local database
authorities go through a private lab and get results within a month. He said he
uses money from assets seized from criminals to pay for the private lab work.
"If they are burglarizing and we don't get them
identified in 18 to 24 months, they have two years to keep committing
crimes," he said.
DNA is found in cells and provides a genetic blueprint
unique to each person. Blood, saliva, semen, hair, and skin are among the
biological clues a criminal might leave at a crime scene and investigators need
only a few cells to create a profile.
Police typically get a DNA sample by swabbing the inside
of a person's mouth. That sample can then be compared against others in a
database to see if a match occurs.
Some police departments collect samples from people who
are never arrested or convicted of crimes, though in all such cases the person
is supposed to voluntarily comply and not be coerced or threatened.
State and federal authorities typically require a
conviction, arrest or warrant before a sample is entered into their
collections.
"The local databases have very, very little
regulations and very few limits, and the law just hasn't caught up to them,"
said Jason Kreig, a law professor at the University of Arizona who has studied
the issue. "Everything with the local DNA databases is skirting the spirit
of the regulations."
It's unclear how many police departments maintain their
own DNA databanks because they are subject to no state or federal oversight,
but police in California, Florida, Connecticut and Pennsylvania have spoken
publicly about their local databases. Harran said he knows of about 60
departments using local databases.
In San Diego, in addition to voluntary samples taken from
adults, police officers are allowed to take samples from juveniles who aren't
arrested or convicted as long as they are for investigative purposes and the
children sign a consent form. After the sample is taken, a police officer is
required to contact the child's parent or legal guardian to tell them a DNA
swab was collected.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit
against San Diego last month alleging the policy "purports to
sideswipe" restrictions implemented by a California state law that bars
those samples from being entered into the state's DNA database.
When police officers take DNA samples from children
without a court order, "it's hard to imagine it's anything other than
coerced or involuntary," said Bardis Vakili, an ACLU attorney who is
spearheading the lawsuit.
"I think they are trying to avoid transparency and
engage in forms of surveillance," he said. "We don't know what's done
other than it goes into their lab and is kept in a database."
A San Diego police spokesman declined to comment on the
lawsuit and wouldn't provide additional information about the department's
policy.
San Diego, the nation's eighth-largest city, has about
1.4 million people and a very large database, while Branford, Connecticut,
population 28,000, has just 500 samples in its collection.
Still, Chief Daniel Halloran said the database has helped
solve crimes and eliminate other people as suspects. The department has
implemented strict guidelines to ensure samples are voluntary and they do not
take samples from juveniles, he said.
"It's not like we're pulling over motorists and
asking them for DNA," Halloran said. "There has to be some sort of
correlation to a crime."
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Follow Michael Balsamo on Twitter @MikeBalsamo1.
© 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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