RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
The New York Times
April 19, 2008
The Bush administration moved forward on Friday with a program to expand collecting DNA samples from people in federal custody.
But it was unclear how federal laboratories would be able to handle the added work.
The Justice Department formally proposed regulations for collecting the samples, a technique that essentially mirrors taking the fingerprints of people arrested for federal offenses, as well as illegal immigrants detained by federal authorities.
The government now collects DNA just from felons. DNA, the genetic marker found in hair and blood and other body fluids, can provide a more concrete link to a crime than fingerprints, which often are not left at a crime scene or are difficult to collect.
For the new effort to succeed, the samples, most collected by swabbing an inside cheek, have to be entered into the DNA database of the F.B.I.
A spokeswoman for the bureau’s laboratory, Ann Todd, said it already had a backlog of 225,000 samples to be processed, a more complex procedure than entering fingerprints.
If Justice Department estimates are accurate, work at the laboratory would increase twelvefold, Ms. Todd said.
No additional money was provided for the laboratory when Congress authorized the new collection program in 2006.
Loading ...
