DNA Base Expansion

Laura Neuman, a rape victim, is fighting to expand this country’s DNA database.  Specifically, she wants anyone arrested for a violent crime to have their DNA put into the database.  Had this been done earlier, the rapist that attacked her–and quite possibly at least 20 other women–would have been discovered and charged much sooner.

This sounds like a good idea–making sure that rapists and murderers are more likely to be caught within a reasonable amount of time makes sense.

However, there are also many individuals and groups–including people from the ACLU–who object to the automatic “DNA fingerprinting” of all people arrested for violent crimes.  They argue that collecting DNA samples is much more invasive than actual fingerprinting, and that storing so many people’s DNA will lead to abuses and serious mistakes that might lead to innocent people being arrested for crimes they did not commit.  Furthermore, if anyone who is simply arrested for–not charged with–committing a crime, racism will almost certainly play a role here, since police are more likely to arrest a person of color than a white person.

So, what do you guys think?  I believe very strongly in privacy, but I also believe that people who commit violent crimes need to be caught–rehabilitated if possible, and off the streets if they cannot be rehabilitated.  And, if there are safeguards to ensure that DNA alone will not be enough to convict a person, I don’t really think an expanded database will lead to a potential for abuse and wrongful conviction.

In any case, I have the utmost respect for Neuman, and I think that we need to listen carefully to what she has to say, and, if not put into practice an automatic DNA fingerprinting at each arrest, at least make the system more efficient so that serial rapists are stopped.