DNA Delays Jeopardize Justice
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WASHINGTON – Thousands of DNA profiles in unsolved criminal cases experience long delays before they are added to a national FBI database, jeopardizing their value in identifying suspected murderers, rapists, and others, according to a Justice Department report yesterday.
The report by Glenn Fine, the Justice Department’s inspector general, identified more than 2,500 completed DNA profiles in unsolved cases that had not been added to the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System in a timely fashion. Some had been waiting for nearly a year.
“The crime-solving potential of these profiles cannot be realized until they are uploaded into CODIS, where they can be matched to convicted offenders or other crime-scene evidence,” Mr. Fine said in the report.
The FBI database, which contains more than 1.7 million profiles, is used by forensic laboratories nationwide to match DNA evidence to that recovered in previously unrelated crimes. The database also matches DNA evidence to people already convicted of other crimes.
The report also found that the Justice Department program created to help states reduce a huge backlog of criminal cases awaiting DNA evidence testing – more than 540,000 as of April 2004 – had only seen 41% of its original $28.5 million in funding actually spent nearly two years after the grants were awarded.
Such delays, the report said, “serve as indicators that state grantees are not using program funds to increase their analytic capability and reduce the backlog.”
The report made 19 recommendations for improvements. Deborah Daniels, the assistant attorney general for the Office of Justice Programs, said in a written response that a Bush administration DNA initiative announced in March 2003 will “successfully address many of the key issues” cited in the report.
For example, she said DNA backlog grants are now made directly to crime laboratories to accelerate their usefulness and there are more specific timeliness requirements for DNA profiles to be added to the FBI database.
Earlier this month, President Bush signed legislation providing $775 million over five years in grants for states to use in clearing up the DNA testing backlog.