Free Business Idea
 

Open a DNA laboratory. You know there will be a major court decisions that will protect the rights of victims in the future that will require local law enforcement to test. Popular TV shows such as CSI and Law & Order have brought DNA testing to the forefront. U.S. & World Report recently did a cover story on the impact of these TV shows and the newer set of expectations juries now have to trials. District attorneys, usually elected officials, will begin to feel the pressure from the public.

Outsource the testing to India! Or do it locally. Either way there will be alot of government money going towards testing in the future.

Click for story


Study: Forensic DNA Underutilized in U.S.

PULLMAN, Wash. - Ophelia McKnight was last seen alive on Jan. 5, 1988, in downtown Seattle. Her body was found a month later. In June, 17 years after the crime, DNA evidence prompted 47-year old Joseph Tice to confess to killing her.

Such outcomes could be much more common, but a new study by researchers at Washington State University finds that forensic DNA analysis is woefully underused in the United States.

The study estimated that 250,000 unsolved rapes and homicides in the United States since 1982 ? more than half of such crimes ? have yet to be subjected to DNA testing.

"The effectiveness of forensic DNA has created a tremendous testing demand that is not met by the available supply," said Travis Pratt, a criminal justice professor at WSU.

The reasons for low usage include lack of money, trained personnel and other resources for performing the complicated tests. The researchers' survey also found that some law enforcement agencies were reluctant to take and store DNA evidence.

Pratt and his fellow researchers from WSU gathered numbers from 120 crime labs and about 3,400 law enforcement agencies in all 50 states, using a grant from the National Institute of Justice, a government research agency.

They found that some law enforcement agencies still are reluctant to use DNA testing because it is expensive and requires more training, researcher Michael J. Gaffney said.

"We heard from agencies that had never submitted a DNA sample for testing," Gaffney said.

The researchers found that most law enforcement agencies still view DNA evidence as supplemental evidence, more useful to prosecutors in obtaining a conviction than to investigators in identifying the perpetrator.

Many law enforcement agencies were still unaware of the existence of the national DNA database, the study found.

"Nearly one-fourth of all the surveyed law enforcement agencies reported that one of the primary reasons for not sending DNA to a crime laboratory was the lack of a suspect in the case," the study says. "The problem with that is that those are the very types of cases in which the current national DNA database of existing criminal offenders can be most useful."