Databases or Arrests?
From Dan Froomkin, “FBI Lab’s Forensic Testing Backlog Traced To Controversial DNA Database,” we see this example of the mis-direction of key funds:
The pressure to feed results into a controversial, expansive DNA database has bogged down the FBI’s DNA lab so badly that there is now a two-year-and-growing backlog for forensic DNA testing needed to solve violent crimes and missing persons cases.
Civil libertarians call the database — which increasingly includes everyone convicted of every federal law, legally innocent people awaiting trial and non-citizens detained in the U.S. for any reason — unnecessary and unconstitutional.
And yet a review by the Department of Justice’s Inspector General released on Monday concludes that the need to analyze and upload some 96,973 or more DNA samples a year into that database is contributing to a backlog of forensic DNA cases that stood at 3,211 in March.
That translates into a delay of about 150 days to over 600 days for law enforcement agencies who need answers right away.
We need to defund the database and use that money for something more useful, like getting that 150 days down to 5 or 10 for active criminal cases.
Via Michael Froomkin, “FBI Prefers Building DNA Database to Solving Crimes“