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Risking Ethical Insolvency: A Survey of Trends in Criminal DNA Databanking

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

Jonathan Kimmelman
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Extract

Over ten years have elapsed since Virginia passed the nation's first criminal DNA banking law, which authorized law enforcement authorities to collect DNA samples from certain categories of offenders for the purposes of performing profile analysis. Within nine years, Rhode Island became the fiftieth state to enact a similar statute. The passage of a decade since the first enactment provides a convenient opportunity to assess the strengths and weaknesses of ethical safeguards under present law as well as predict the likely direction of future developments.

DNA forensics are merely the latest in a long line of biologically based identifying law enforcement technologies that include fingerprints and serotyping. Nevertheless, DNA has properties that make it significantly different than its predecessors with respect to the ethical and social concerns it raises.

Type
Article
Information
Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics , Volume 28 , Issue 3 , Fall 2000 , pp. 209 - 221
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 2000

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