Motion: “The police should have DNA profile as they do with our fingerprints”
Presented by Ana Sánchez Pitiot
I’m sure all of you have heard about CSI, the TV series. When they arrive at a crime scene, they search dry or liquid blood, hairs, cigarette butts, etc. which are processed in the laboratory to get DNA samples and a DNA profile. Then, they compare it with the suspects and the database to identify the criminal.
Nowadays that is almost impossible in Spain. Here the permission to take DNA samples are really difficult to obtain, and limited to very specific crimes. Police think that if they were allowed to take samples from everyone accused of an offence, as they do with the fingerprints, they would be able to solve crimes more quickly and accurately.
Do you think it will be really useful? And, what about if they had the DNA profiles of everybody? Do you think people will think twice before committing a crime if they knew they could be easily caught?
Comments»
Apart from the fact, that CSI is quite entertaining; I have to say that this type of series present us a significant amount of lies.
Nowadays, it´s imposible that a researcher can know the composition of a sample putting it, directly, in a chromatographic system. This type of devices are used in a much more complicated way.
Despite the fact, that I´m not an expert on this issue, it is known that getting a DNA profile is a long process which lasts at least 30 days. In CSI, investigators achieve results in a few hours.
Consequently, I thought that CSI is quiet unreal. Therefore It shouldn´t be used as a referent to form an opinion of how the police has to solve crimes.
Leaving aside if CSI is real or not, I think that it would be a good idea. If you are inocent that won’t do anything bad to you, and I’m sure it could help caughing the criminals.
Tarantula, CSI was just an example to introduce my motion. Some years ago I thought the same about the series, but now I see it is not as unreal as it seems to be. Of course you can’t have a result putting the sample directly in a chromatographic system: you have extract the DNA, amplify it in a PCR, and run this in a genetic analyzer before analyze the result. If you have only a few samples, I can assure you that it can be done within 24 hours.
Notice that the DNA profile of a person is unique, and it is given half from the father and half for the mother, so it can be used for other kind of studies besides forensic investigation:
Identification of missing persons or victims of mass disasters. I’m sure everyone remembers the accident of the YAK-42 in 2003 where 62 Spanish soldiers died, and the problems they had to identify the bodies. That could have been more easy and quick, Iif they had had a previous DNA profile of the soldiers.
Paternity test. As I told before, you have half of your DNA markers from each parent, so DNA profiling can be used to relationship analyses. You can ask for it here at the hospital of Oviedo, but you have to pay for it (more or less 1000 €).
There are some more applications of this technique, but I think these are the most interesting ones.
Then to read Ana´s comment, I have to say that I follow thinking the same. I know something about Chromatography and other Analytic techniques, and CSI is bitterly unreal.
I know that it´s only an example, but what I wanted to say, is that you can not take it as a reference to form an opinion. It´s clear that DNA profiling could be absolutely helpful, but the way how it´s used in this type of series are not the way that it would be use it in the real life.
Apart from that, I believe that all what can help to catch criminals is good, and it should be used.
I strongly disagree with this idea, even I feel it is against one of the most important human rights, the right of intimacy or of privacy which is recognized in the 12th article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In my opinion there is nothing more private than your genes.
I know that the idea would be to give the police a tool to improve the fight against the criminals but is absolutely out of proportion. I believe rapid technological advances threaten privacy but this right must be always warranted unless you like a world as the one Orwell suggest in his novels.
DNA can solve crimes more quickly but if all of our genetic identity could be in a database where someone could use it, our privacy will be invaded without our permission. It could be better if the police made the DNA profiles of people who are committed a crime before in order to compare with them the future crimes.
Talking about the series as CSI, it is true that they do things so quickly but in the real life the analysis can be made in 24 hours more or less but not in more than 30 days as Tarantula has said. The analyses are easier to do if scientists would have more material to work with it and in Spain; scientists have less material than the necessary. So if the government wants to use the DNA profiles, they have to improve the resources in our laboratories.
First of all, I have to make a difference between DNA and fingerprints. Everybody knows that both of them are unique. You can catch a criminal with his fingerprints or with the DNA, but the main difference is that DNA provides much more useful information than a simply fingerprint. You can discover very quickly if the suspect is the criminal or is part of his family. Especially in that cases related with crimes into a family, DNA is a very useful tool that could bring the police the final evidence to catch the killer. In fact, in the recent case of the “Monster of Amstetten”, police could prove that his daughter was his granddaughter too due to the DNA analysis, so they could catch him, and release all the family.
On the other hand, DNA has much other information about us. In fact it’s a complete library of our body and our conscious. It can tell us the disease we are probably going to have in the future and if we believe in God or not as some scientist affirm. However, if the government assures us that this information will be strongly encrypted I don’t think it would be a bad idea as Sebastian Coe said.
What we have to avoid is that all this information won’t be use to classified people into believers or not believers, probably insane or not, or thinks like that which concern to our Human Rights. If governments began to think like that it would probably take us into the world that Orwell suggests, so we have to be careful if we want to protect our intimacy and improve the law at the same time.
I´m surprised about your knowledge of DNA and differents techniques used in CSI.
I think we all know that things are not so fast as in CSI, but it´s a way for most of us, whose job is completely different (and more boring), to get some ideas about the way police work.
But, about the idea of a DNA profile for the police, I´m not sure if it is a good idea. First of all, it would be easier for future investigations if this DNA profile existed.
But, at the same time, we are not sure about the correct use of this information. It is too easy to abuse and make a wrong use of this.
I found the Warlock’s comment very interesting,I do agree with you.I have also read that our DNA can influence our religion!Despite the fact that it seems nearly imposible,I have to admit that DNA is our personal and unique library and researches are getting to know more and more about our identity by our DNA.This means that personality and behaviour can obviously be influenced by our Genomic information.It’s just flabbergasting…isn’t it?
There’s a saying (by myself) that says: “The less known about something the more will be people talking about it”. And with DNA does also happen (I’m not talking about you, don’t worry. It’s about those “searchers” who pretend to know everything and in fact they don’t know what they are talking about). There are many of our characteristics determined by DNA, no doubt about that, and there are also many illnesses caused by mutations in the DNA (Schizophrenia, Cancer, Alzheimer …). However, only a minority is caused exclusively by alterations in it, and it’s not everything written there. Ok, perhaps it is, but due to the many environmental factors surrounding us, what is written can change, not only for bad (as in cancer) but also as a benefit (also in cancer, although it seems unbelievable).
The fact of being believers or not, could have some kind of relation with the DNA, but at least from my point of view, the most important aspect that makes you a believer or not, is what you’ve seen in your childhood, what your parents have told you, I would also say that’s it’s even more important than your genes the country/ society you live in… The same happens with our personality, it does not only depend on your genes but also in the way you were brought up.
Answering to the raised question: I do find those techniques absolutely useful. There would only be some problems with homozigotic twins, though I hope that in some year’s time there would also be a solution for this problem.