Standing alongside the city’s police commissioner and all five district attorneys, Mayor Bloomberg pressed Albany Democrats to approve plans for collecting DNA from all convicted criminals.

Mr. Bloomberg wants New York to create the nation’s most extensive DNA data bank, collecting genetic material from anyone convicted of a felony or misdemeanor. People convicted of noncriminal violations – like disorderly conduct and open container citations – could keep their DNA to themselves.

With DNA replacing fingerprints as the definitive tool for linking suspects to crimes, Mr. Bloomberg said a more comprehensive DNA database is long overdue. Under current state law, which Mr. Bloomberg called “one of the weakest in the nation,” only some felons must submit DNA samples.

“Most sex offenders and murderers are not specialists. They get convicted of every crime in the book, including minor offenses like petty larceny and trespassing, and each time that happens is an opportunity for us to stop career criminals in their tracks,” Mr. Bloomberg said. “As long as we’re lagging behind, make no mistake about it, people are being murdered and raped by people who should already be behind bars.”

Mr. Bloomberg made his comments at a soon-to-be-finished $250 million forensic laboratory in Manhattan that will expand the city’s ability to extract DNA from tiny particles, such as saliva on a cigarette butt or sweat from a baseball hat. Two rape victims stood with the mayor to show support for his efforts.

Legislation to expand the DNA database has already passed in the Republican-controlled state Senate, but has been stalled in the Democrat-led Assembly. It would expand the existing database by an estimated 80,000 DNA profiles.

In January, Mr. Pataki ordered an expansion of the database, saying he could no longer wait for the Assembly to take action.

Assemblyman Joseph Lentol, a Democrat of Brooklyn who heads the committee that handles criminal justice matters, said the Assembly plans to introduce a new bill Monday and is confident it will pass.

“It is a top priority,” he said. “All we wanted to do was have a workable system.”

Mr. Bloomberg avoided singling out any of Albany’s leaders by name or political party, but his remarks amounted to a swipe at the Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, who just last year sabotaged the mayor’s dream of a football stadium on Manhattan’s West Side.

The mayor’s new vigor on the issue was praised by the five prosecutors and by crime victims, but was immediately criticized by civil rights advocates, who said that errors in handling and collecting DNA have already resulted in convictions of innocent people. They also raised privacy concerns.

Critics say the current system is already riddled with problems and that DNA is not the magic bullet that it is being cast as. The Innocence Project, a Manhattan-based nonprofit founded by Barry Scheck, e-mailed reporters a listing of crime victims, onetime prosecutors, scientists, and academics opposed to the expansion.

The director of the project, Stephen Saloom, said the government already keeps DNA samples from those who volunteer them to get eliminated from an investigation. That might be the wife, boyfriend, or roommate of a murder victim.

But the district attorney of Brooklyn, Charles Hynes, said an expanded database could help exonerate those wrongly accused. “No one should languish in jail who’s innocent, no woman should live the nightmare that is part of a rape,” he said.

The district attorney of Manhattan, Robert Morgenthau, said DNA was an indispensable tool in prosecuting cases to the fullest extent.

He cited an example of 2002 rape that was solved this week after Florida authorities submitted the DNA of burglar to the national DNA database and it matched samples in New York. He said because the new evidence had just come in, “We don’t know what other rapes he may have committed in the last four years.”

The criminal justice coordinator for Mr. Bloomberg, John Feinblatt, said during a phone interview that the type of DNA used would only be able to distinguish people and would not disclose more personal biological characteristics. He also said it would not infringe on privacy because it would be kept away from anyone outside of law enforcement.