The state of Ohio issued a new policy regarding inmate DNA collection that is expected to diminish mistakes in databases that connect crimes to the people who commit them.
There have recently been several changes to the law regarding who needs to be tested for DNA, which is collected from inmates through swabbing of the mouth. The latest change took effect in July 2011, said Lisa Hackley, communications director for the Ohio Attorney General’s Office for the Bureau of Criminal Investigation.
She added that with more information in the database, DNA matches will be easier to make and more crimes will be solved.
Jeremy Tolson, warden at the Southeast Ohio Regional Jail, said this change has been implemented at the jail for about a year and has only created minor adjustments in the jail’s procedures.
The DNA collection process “just takes a couple of minutes” and does “not (involve) a whole lot of extra stuff,” Tolson said.
All inmates’ mouths must be swabbed with a Q-tip, which is then placed in a bag and mailed off to be recorded.
Hackley pointed out that the use of the Combined DNA Index System, a national DNA database, is a software created by the FBI in 1984 designed to work with the National DNA Index System as a repository of DNA records. It has since become the largest collection of files in the world and now includes data from the new DNA collections.
CODIS is also effective in cold cases; if a DNA profile cannot be found for a particular criminal, there is a good chance of a hit if the name is entered into the system because it is likely that the offender has committed other crimes for which he or she provided a DNA sample, said Douglas Hares, a Ph.D. scientist at the FBI laboratory, according to the FBI website.
Hares added that technology plays a key role in keeping track of DNA profiles through the Combined DNA Index System.
“Thanks to a National Institute of Justice grant and the use of robotics and expert systems, we eliminated a backlog of more than 300,000 offender profiles in a matter of months,” he said.
The FBI also plans to expand the CODIS system as technology in DNA collection progresses. Since CODIS was established, the FBI has aided in solving more than 152,000 crimes that might not have been solved otherwise,
Hares said.
“As we continue to add more profiles, the potential to solve more crimes — and also to rule out suspects who are innocent — continues to increase,” he said.
kf398711@ohiou.edu
